


What We Think We Know

by Notesfromaclassroom



Series: The Academy [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-04
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 112,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notesfromaclassroom/pseuds/Notesfromaclassroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spock hires his best student to be his teaching assistant, and both are instantly sorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: The Lyre**  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Star Trek universe. I own little enough in the real one.  
  
Her first day is almost her last.  
  
Well, not really. Nyota Uhura is not a quitter.  
  
But in the running patter that she keeps up in her mind—in the narrative of her own life that she tells herself, almost as if she were reeling off the details of someone fictional—Nyota can imagine walking up to Commander Spock and telling him that she is through, that she has made a serious error in judgment in accepting his offer of teaching assistant.  
  
She can imagine it.  
  
She can't do it.  
  
Her own reaction surprises her—after all, she knows him. He has been her teacher—twice—and she has spent more than a few hours listening to other cadets complaining about his fussiness, his aloofness, his maddening quirks that drive every teaching assistant away.  
  
Not her. She will not be driven away. Not the first day.  
  
The day had started innocently enough. After assigning her a personal passcode, Spock asked her to check his work email and organize some computer files. The sheer number of emails was daunting—347!—so she started with the filing instead. No sooner had she finished than Spock asked her to send the sorted emails to his terminal—and she had to admit that she had not yet looked at them.  
  
Annoyance flashed across his face—she was sure of it—and she scrambled to explain. His silence as he listened was almost worse than if he had scolded her, or made some rejoinder.  
  
"In the future," he said when she finally grew quiet, "please do your assigned tasks in the order given."  
  
"Yes, Sir," she said, mortified. I deserved that, she thought, not quite sincerely. Of course he would have everything arranged in logical order.  
  
Perhaps I should quit now, she thought. But she had shrugged off her embarrassment and turned back to the emails.  
  
The emails do not take as long as she fears. A great many are requests for lectures at conferences or colloquia—discard those, Spock tells her when she shows the first one to him. Some are replies to queries he has made for data from other researchers—save those to a chip, he tells her when she tries to forward one to his terminal.  
  
None are marked personal, though Nyota isn't surprised. This is his work email account, after all. She amuses herself briefly trying to imagine what his personal mail would look like—and who would send it.  
  
In the end, only one notice requires any further action on her part, an alert that the post office is holding a package.  
  
"I can pick it up for you when I head out to lunch," she says, and Spock nods without looking up from his personal PADD.  
  
The package is surprisingly large and bulky—though fortunately not heavy. When she places it on Spock's desk he looks up, a flicker of surprise whipping across his brow.  
  
"I had to sign for it," Nyota says. "The post master almost didn't let me have it!"  
  
She smiles to show that she is joking—but Spock's expression is unreadable. Has he always been this reserved? No, not reserved. Withdrawn. Almost unfriendly.  
  
"The return address says it's from Vulcan," she says, pointing to the package. "Do you still have family there?"  
  
She is horrified to hear herself babbling—a nervous habit she thought she had broken long ago.  
  
Shut up! she wills herself, and at last Spock meets her gaze.  
  
"Yes," he says. And then he adds, "My parents are there."  
  
"I see," Nyota hears herself say. "Well, aren't you going to open it?"  
  
"Curious?" Spock asks, lifting one eyebrow, and for a moment Nyota is relieved. This is more like she imagined working for him would be—his quiet wit peeking through his dry delivery from time to time. She smiles.  
  
With a quick motion Spock pulls the release tape from the edge of the package and bends back the top. Leaning forward, Nyota sees a glint of wood.  
  
"A harp!" she exclaims, and Spock says, "A ka'athyra. My family's."  
  
"So that's what one looks like," Nyota says, her voice almost reverent. "I have heard recordings. May I?"  
  
She reaches her hand toward the box and Spock folds the top back down.  
  
"I am sorry, Cadet Uhura, but….you may not touch it. The oil in your hand—in a human hand—would damage it."  
  
His tone is oddly dispassionate but Nyota feels stung. That emphasis on human, as if she were somehow less for being so. She takes a breath and looks him in the eye—and is shocked to see rage there.  
  
As soon as he realizes that she is looking at him, his face becomes the unreadable mask once more.  
  
Confused, she nods, and as she leaves his office, she says, "Of course, Sir. I apologize."  
  
X X X X X X X X X  
  
He knew its sound before he ever saw it.  
  
Or so he assumes. His mother told him once that Sarek played it throughout her pregnancy—to soothe her when she was exceptionally restless.  
  
That image—of his father playing the ka'athyra for his mother—is not necessarily a tender one. Using music to regulate mood is—practical, and logical. Even humans use music to augment their shaky emotional control.  
  
Perhaps his father's concern about Spock's more human control was why he placed the ka'athyra in his hands so early—certainly before he started formal schooling. For Sarek—for most Vulcans—the lyre is a tool. Indeed, if his father ever remarked on the aesthetic qualities of the music it can produce, Spock can't recall.  
  
The judges in the all-Vulcan music competition cited Sarek's "mathematic precision" as the reason he was awarded first place.  
  
The judges did not explain why Spock finished second. They didn't need to.  
  
But that was years after his father first handed him a ka'athyra modified for children, smaller in scale with raised frets and with six strings instead of twelve.  
  
"He'll break it," Amanda warned, but Sarek gave her a stony look and reached for his son's left hand, wrapping his fingers around the tonal modulator.  
  
"Hold it thus," Sarek said, holding up his own ka'athyra, a family heirloom for at least three generations, its wooden soundboard polished to a gleam by the fingering of musicians long dead.  
  
He had lifted his right hand to the strings as his father showed him—dimly aware of his mother clucking and hovering nearby—and then ran his fingers across them, evoking a sound that even now shames him with its power to cause him to feel.  
  
"A good start," Sarek said impassively, and Spock flushed with pleasure at the unexpected praise. Immediately Spock felt his father's disappointment flicker through their familial bond.  
  
"It is a good start," Amanda said swiftly, darting a warning glance at her husband.  
  
But it was too late. There it was again—like a pebble in a shoe—the friction between his father and mother that never quite went away….and he knew, again, as he always knew, that he was the cause.  
  
Despite Amanda's prediction, Spock did not break his first ka'athyra—at least not technically. He did, however, take it apart—much to his mother's amusement, though why she found his curiosity a source of humor, he could not fathom.  
  
When Sarek saw the disassembled pieces laid out on the living area floor, he turned on his heel and left the house for a few hours….but when he returned, Spock was waiting for their evening lesson, his lyre in his hands.  
  
Since then he has owned two other ka'athyras. The first he bought when he was 12 years old from a street seller in the open-air market section of the city. It was a full-size instrument, obviously old, somewhat worn, but when Spock hefted it in his hands and pulled his fingers across the strings, he felt such an irrational need for it that he would have agreed to any price the merchant asked.  
  
"Dry rot," Sarek said later, pressing his thumbnail into a soft section near the headstock.  
  
Struggling to contain his dismay, Spock took a breath and said, "But it plays well."  
  
From the corner of his eye he could see his mother pause in her dinner preparations. As she stepped to the door of the kitchen and looked out to the patio, Spock took note of her expression—consternation, confusion, anger. Spock wasn't sure which.  
  
She said nothing then, though after he had retired to his room for the evening, Spock had heard the argument—his mother's insistent, strident voice punctuated by his father's occasional quiet rumble. Do you always have to shoot him down? Can't he ever do anything right for you?  
  
Shortly afterwards Sarek's duties as ambassador took him off-planet for seven months, and Spock began studying with a teacher who lived south of Shi'Kahr. Once a week Spock took a public flitter after school to her house, usually arriving a few minutes before the end of the last student's lesson.  
  
On those occasions he waited in the anteroom, ostensibly reading his lessons for school but actually listening closely to the other students. Most of the time the student before him was a girl much younger—slim and dark, her notes precise and well-practiced, the tonal qualities pitch perfect. His own performance did not compare.  
  
When he began to beg off going to his lessons, Amanda became alarmed.  
  
"But you've always loved playing," she said one night when the two of them were lingering over their meal at the kitchen table. "If you don't like T'Cara, we can find another—"  
  
"Mother, I neither like nor dislike my teacher. I just do not wish to continue the lessons."  
  
Amanda set her fork on her plate and looked hard at her son.  
  
"Unless you give me more reason than that, the answer is no. What would your father say? T'Cara is highly respected—"  
  
"And I am a mediocre student," Spock blurted out, glancing up at his mother.  
  
"You are not!" Amanda said swiftly, and Spock felt a wave of exasperation with her.  
  
"I am not being falsely modest," he said. "The other students are much more accomplished."  
  
"Then you have something to aspire to," Amanda said, standing and taking her plate to the sink. Her tone was clear—the discussion was over.  
  
The next week, Spock put into motion his second plan for discontinuing the lessons. As usual, he arrived while a student was with T'Cara and he waited for the lesson to end. As usual, the student walked past him without a word and exited the front door, and Spock took her place in the dim, cool room with only two wooden chairs.  
  
T'Cara was older than his father, though by how much Spock didn't know. Her short, cropped hair had once been light brown but was now shot with gray. At the edge of her eyes Spock could see tiny wrinkles; the skin of her hands was lightly mottled, something Spock had observed in his elderly relatives.  
  
Unlike most of the older Vulcans Spock knew, however, T'Cara seemed less driven, less intense or serious. His teachers at school were much more focused on objectives, meeting benchmarks, following standards. T'Cara rarely spoke of goals—and Spock intended to use that to his advantage.  
  
"You have something to say?" T'Cara said as soon as Spock settled himself on one of the wooden chairs. That she could read his intentions startled him.  
  
"I—" he began, suddenly uncertain about how to proceed. He took a breath and added, "I am not progressing satisfactorily. My skills do not seem to be improving."  
  
He risked a look at his teacher and was surprised to see her eyebrows furrowed, her lips pressed together.  
  
"And how are you measuring your progress?" T'Cara asked, straightening in her chair.  
  
"I—I am uncertain how to measure it," Spock said. "In my academic studies, I am able to establish norm-referenced goals for myself. "  
  
He glanced up to gauge T'Cara's response and then hurried on.  
  
"I believe my musical skill would improve if I were able to establish data-driven measures—"  
  
"Spock."  
  
T'Cara's tone was quiet but firm. Spock averted his gaze.  
  
"Some teachers do use such measures," she said, and Spock hazarded a look at her. Her brow was no longer furrowed—indeed, she looked more amused than anything else.  
  
"If what you want is technical proficiency, then perhaps you are right to be dissatisfied with my teaching."  
  
Spock opened his mouth to protest, but T'Cara went on.  
  
"But if what you want is to make the ka'athyra your own—part of who and what you are—then you have to stop comparing yourself to my other students."  
  
Again Spock had opened his mouth to protest—but his words died in his throat.  
  
"Now," T'Cara said briskly, "the student who was here a little while ago. She is an excellent student—a gifted musician—with more skill than most students her age."  
  
Spock nodded agreement—and felt a flash of jealousy that embarrassed him.  
  
"But for her, music is just another exercise. It does not speak to her—not the way it does for you."  
  
Flushing furiously, Spock had tightened his grip on his ka'athyra and considered getting up to leave. He had never told anyone his feelings about music—about the release he felt when he pressed his callused fingers into the strings, about the pleasure of strumming atonal chord progressions.  
  
"Ah, yes," T'Cara said, "you appreciate the mathematics of music—but your own playing is far more expressive. For you, music is more. Not many Vulcans can play as you do—perhaps no others. It is not precise, but it is beautiful, in its own way."  
  
And then T'Cara had nodded toward him—an invitation to begin the lesson—and he had.  
  
When Sarek returned a few months later and offered to resume his tutoring, Spock had demurred.  
  
"You chose an excellent teacher for me," Spock had explained to his slightly miffed father.  
  
The second ka'athyra he owned was a gift from his mother the night before he left for Starfleet Academy. Unlike the family heirloom it was new, made to order by a well-regarded craftsman from Kir.  
  
"I know it needs time to cure," Amanda said, her voice unnaturally cheerful—a strategy, Spock had come to realize, that she used when she was trying to reign in a strong emotion. "But I hope you enjoy it anyway."  
  
Spock had not known what to say. The last few weeks before he left for the Academy were fraught with both great tension and great silence—his father's disapproval settling over the family like a storm, his mother's sadness even more pervasive.  
  
He ran his hands over the bright wood and gave the tonal modulator an experimental twirl. Even new, this instrument was far superior to his old ka'athyra.  
  
"Thank you," he said at last, and his mother nodded once and went back to arranging dried fruits and protein bars in a package she insisted Spock take with him on his trip the next day.  
  
In the middle of the night he had gotten up and drifted into the living area. He had the sense that this might be the last time he would see this room—these things in it, this furniture.  
  
A fanciful notion—he knew it—but he walked softly around the room, gently reaching out and touching the objects on the bookshelf—the hard copies of treatises his father looked at often, holovids of himself and his mother through the years, two archaeological pieces he had found in the desert.  
  
And then he came to the cabinet where his father kept the family ka'athyra—safe from the constant threat of dust and heat. With a start he realized that he had never held this ka'athyra—that the only time he had seen it outside the cabinet was when his father played it.  
  
Later he would wonder how much he was motivated by curiosity and how much by anger. Vulcans in general were hardly materialistic—not that they couldn't be possessive, but too much energy spent on acquiring and maintaining objects was an illogical waste, particularly objects which could easily be replaced.  
  
The family heirloom, however, was irreplaceable.  
  
Spock opened the cabinet and slipped his hand around the curved neck. It was slick and cool to his touch, and though he hadn't planned to, he lifted it and placed his hands on the strings.  
  
The house was still. For a moment Spock hesitated, and then he sat gingerly on the edge of the sofa and let his fingers begin to slip across the ka'athyra.  
  
For the first time that he could remember, he found the sound jarring instead of soothing, and after only a few moments, he dropped his hand and waited for the reverberations to stop.  
  
What would it feel like to smash this instrument to the floor?  
  
Shaken, he stood up quickly and replaced the ka'athyra in the cabinet. He returned to his own room and lay across the bed, awake, until he heard his father stirring just before the sunrise. Perhaps his father would share a cup of tea with him before he headed out to catch his transport to Earth? He wouldn't know unless he asked.  
  
Sarek was not in the kitchen as Spock had guessed but was in the living area, sitting in the dark, holding the ka'athyra, his face unreadable.  
  
"Father?"  
  
No answer. Spock reached behind him and palmed on the light. The room sprang into being.  
  
"Father?" he said again, and Sarek looked up at him.  
  
"Your fingers," Sarek said, gesturing to the ka'athyra in his lap. "You touched it."  
  
For a moment Spock was disoriented. What was his father saying?  
  
"Yes," he said. "For a moment."  
  
And then Sarek had seemed to pull himself from a far distance.  
  
"The oil on your hands has damaged the wood," he said, tipping the ka'athyra up.  
  
Spock took a step forward, ready to deny it—but there on the soundboard were dark smudges that had not been there before.  
  
"I don't—" Spock began, but Sarek waved his hand and stood up, walking toward the cabinet and opening it.  
  
"Sher skah is an interesting wood," Sarek said, replacing the ka'athyra and shutting the cabinet door. His tone was detached, professorial. "A good example of how interconnected the flora and fauna of a planet can be. Vulcan physiology has no ill effects on it. Human touch, however—"  
  
Without a word Spock turned and left the room. Although he had planned to wait until his mother woke before leaving for the transit station, he shouldered his backpack and walked out the front door.  
  
It would be many months before he and his father would speak again.  
  
X X X X X X X X X  
  
Her first day is almost her last.  
  
If he could, he would rescind his offer of an assistant's position.  
  
He had reservations when he hired her—not because she was one of his best xenolinguistics students, nor because she was easily the most qualified cadet to apply as his teaching assistant—but because he finds her….distracting. When she is in the room—even the large lecture room with rows of chairs in a cascading semicircle—his eye is drawn to her an inordinate percentage of the time.  
  
Unwittingly he scans every student crowd for her silhouette. When he is rewarded with a view of her, he feels an odd rush that he resists identifying as anything more than innocent appreciation.  
  
He's on dangerous ground…and at some level he senses this.  
  
He assigns her work that will keep her at her desk across the room, but he has not counted on how….distracting….he would find her scent, her small noises. From her breathing he can tell that she is startled when she first calls up his email. She breathes faster and huffs—and then scrolls through several screens too quickly to be reading them.  
  
Her breathing evens out for a few minutes and he glances at her—she is obviously sorting his files, her tongue flicking over her lips as she concentrates. As he watches her surreptitiously, he realizes that the room temperature controls must be broken. He is uncharacteristically too warm.  
  
His own work is momentarily forgotten.  
  
When he asks her for his emails he feels disingenuous—he knows she hasn't opened them yet—and he is punished with her look of dismay. How inconvenient this is. He has to get control of himself.  
  
"In the future," he says, "please do your tasks in the assigned order."  
  
His voice betrays no signs of his disquiet, and for the next 63 minutes he is able to focus on research he wants to present in his next lecture on a species of hominids recently discovered on Mura Omega. From time to time she asks him questions about the dispensation of various emails, and by keeping his eyes on his screen and giving short replies, he is able to continue working.  
  
But it is exhausting. When she offers to leave for lunch he is relieved.  
  
He has been expecting a package from a collaborator on Vulcan, but the box Nyota sets on his desk is far too large to be simple data sheet printouts. His attention is drawn to Nyota's slender hand waving toward the box.  
  
"The return address says it's from Vulcan," she says, pointing to the package. "Do you still have family there?"  
  
Spock is momentarily flustered at her question—but they have never spoken about their personal lives with each other. He realizes that he knows almost nothing about her other than what she has shared indirectly.  
  
"Yes," he says. "My parents are there."  
  
He looks more closely at the return address and notes his father's small, careful handwriting.  
  
"I see," Nyota says. "Well, aren't you going to open it?"  
  
He has a sudden memory of watching his cousins in Seattle one holiday—Christmas? Someone's birthday?—opening presents. Nyota's face is lit with a similar anticipation. It is quite pleasing to see.  
  
"Curious?" Spock asks.  
  
The release tape comes away in one long strip. Nyota steps closer to his arm and leans over the opened box.  
  
"A harp!" she exclaims, and Spock says, "A ka'athyra. My family's."  
  
It is, indeed, the heirloom ka'athyra, its polished surface nestled in soft batting.  
  
Spock's mind whirls. Why has his father sent this to him—and why now? His father is not prone to subtlety—nor to hidden messages. Perhaps a note?  
  
But he sees none. He tips the box forward and there, in the interplay of the ambient light, he sees the dark smears of his fingerprints.  
  
"So that's what one looks like," Nyota says. "I have heard recordings. May I?"  
  
Before she can touch the ka'athyra, Spock folds the top of the box back down.  
  
"I am sorry, Cadet Uhura, but….you may not touch it. The oil in your hand—in a human hand—would damage it."  
  
A human hand. His human hand. For the second time in his life, he imagines smashing the ka'athyra into splinters.  
  
The air stirs gently and he realizes that Nyota has pulled back, that she is looking at him, hurt and confusion on her face.  
  
"Of course, Sir. I apologize."  
  
Too late he realizes that she has taken his words as an indictment—but before he can explain, she leaves his office.


	2. Blood

Chapter Two: Blood  
  
Disclaimer: I spy on characters I did not create.  
  
Nyota hears the earthquake before she feels it.  
  
It rolls quickly across the landscape like muted thunder, settling the buildings and then moving on in an instant.  
  
"Whoa!" she hears Professor Artura's TA shouting in the break room. For a moment she sways with the building, but then the world steadies and she catches her breath.  
  
From the landing at the top of the stairs, she hurries down the corridor to the sound of breaking glass. She looks in Spock's office—he's there, of course, as he always is, no matter how early she gets to work. She has joked with Gaila that Spock must spend the night at work.  
  
"I have half a mind to set my clock for 3 AM, just so I can go see for myself."  
  
"Don't bother with the alarm," Gaila had said, airily twirling her hand and flopping back dramatically onto her dorm bed. "I'll just wake you up when I come in. That's about 3—or 4—or 5."  
  
The source of the sound is immediately apparent—a tall cabinet has tipped over, spilling onto the floor a stack of PADDs, hard-copy books, and a picture cube, which is shattered. Spock leans over them, gathering up the shards of broken glass.  
  
"Here," Nyota says, dropping her backpack on the floor and stepping forward. Spock glances up at her and frowns.  
  
"Do not come nearer," he says. Is he angry? He certainly sounds like he is. Nyota stops.  
  
"Let me—" she begins, but he cuts her off.  
  
"You may get hurt," he says, gesturing to the pile of glass in his left hand. She leans toward him slightly and sees a trickle of blood on his thumb. The color is startling—deep emerald, almost black in the office light. Without meaning to, she pulls back. Spock follows her motion with his eyes and then turns again to pick up pieces from the floor.  
  
"I'll…get something," she says, backing out of the office and stumbling slightly.  
  
She takes a breath and hurries down the hall toward the break room. A small medikit on the counter top has disinfectant and derma-strips. Can Spock use this antibiotic ointment? Or does the kit have something for someone…not human? Spock isn't the only alien in the department. Professor Artura is an Andorian—and one of the popular visiting linguists is from Prethestis, a planet fairly new to the Federation. Surely a medikit should be stocked for them as well. Why hadn't she considered that before?  
  
Grabbing the supplies, she goes back to Spock's office. He has already righted the cabinet and replaced the fallen PADDS and books. When she enters the room, he dumps the last of the broken picture cube into the trash bin.  
  
With a rush, she tries to gauge his mood—he had looked upset with her with she offered to help. Now he seems more composed—though she notices that his thumb is still visibly bleeding. In two steps she is inside the office, reaching for his hand.  
  
"I brought a plaster," she says, touching the fingers of his injured hand and turning his palm up. Spock reacts almost violently, jerking his hand away and holding it to his chest.  
  
"I'm…sorry," Nyota says, dropping her arms to her side and blinking in confusion. A human touch, he had said that first day that she had started work as his TA. A human touch would damage his ka'athyra. Her touch. She feels a flash of heat and fury.  
  
To her surprise, Spock's voice is quiet, almost gentle, when he speaks.  
  
"Cadet Uhura," he says, lowering his hand and uncurling his fingers, "I was…caught off guard."  
  
"I see," she says, still very angry. His prejudice has no excuse—and whether or not he was expecting her touch is immaterial. She was, after all, only trying to help him.  
  
The wrapped derma-plaster is still in her hand at her side. Spock looks down and she realizes that he is waiting for her.  
  
His hand is out, palm up, and she exhales loudly and rips open the plaster packaging.  
  
"Do you want any—" she begins, gesturing to the bottle of antiseptic she had set on his desk.  
  
"No," he says quickly, and Nyota bristles again. "No, thank you," he says more slowly.  
  
Bending forward, she examines his bleeding thumb. The blood is seeping from a tiny line now, but what catches her attention is an uneven scar that jags across the meat of his thumb.  
  
"You've done this before," she says as she pulls the tabs from the plaster and sticks it around his thumb, exaggerating her motions to show him that she isn't touching him.  
  
She looks up then, hoping to see—what? Gratitude? Remorse? She isn't sure. What she does see on Spock's face is confusion.  
  
"The scar?" she explains.  
  
His expression clears, and he nods slowly.  
  
"A family trait," he says, and later that night, when she is back in her dorm, Nyota wonders again about the odd note of emotion she had heard in his voice.  
  
X X X X X X X X X X  
  
Sometimes he woke to voices in the night.  
  
Often he could hear his mother's trilling laugh or his father's more measured intonations. He would roll over in his narrow bed and fall back asleep, comforted by the evidence of their good will.  
  
Sometimes he heard their arguments—his mother's short, sharp interjections—his father's rumble sounding like distant thunder.  
  
Then he would lie flat on his back, his arms at his side, straining to hear their words. From time to time his pulse quickened when he caught the syllables of his own name—and he knew that he was the source of their disagreements. On those nights he fell asleep to troubled dreams—of being lost or left, of searching for his parents and always being one step beyond finding them.  
  
In the mornings he would rise, fuzzy-headed with fatigue, to find his mother drinking tea at the kitchen table while his father packed a lunch for work—both seemingly unshaken by the argument in the night.  
  
One night when he was almost 8 years old he awoke to cries of pain—his mother's!—and he jumped from his bed and rushed down the hall towards his parents' room. His father was leaning over the bed where his mother lay writhing and sweaty—and Spock rushed forward with a vague notion that he needed to protect her, that his father was hurting her in some way.  
  
But Sarek caught his arm as he reached for his mother and shook him—not in anger but in alarm.  
  
"Call the healers," Sarek said, the tremor in his voice startling Spock more than anything ever had. "Hurry!"  
  
He didn't have to be told twice. The family communication console was in the living area back down the hall and he slipped as he rounded the corner and entered the room.  
  
"My mother—" he said breathlessly as the communications attendant answered his call. "I think she is dying."  
  
The rest of that evening is a blur, as if someone has held up that memory like a glass slide and smeared it with oil.  
  
The blood must have been too upsetting, he thinks now when he tries to understand why he cannot recall all of the details. The blood—his mother's blood, shockingly red and thick, smeared on the bed sheets and on the front of his father's robe.  
  
The evening is a series of vignettes: his mother calling his name as he stood in the doorway, sent out of the way by the two healers who arrived shortly after his call; his father carrying his mother to the flitter, the two healers in close attendance; the elderly aunt who stayed with Spock that night—and the next day, too, until Sarek came back home for a short nap and to reassure his son that Amanda would return in a few days.  
  
"But why isn't she here?" Spock had asked, genuinely confused. His mother had been ill before and healers had come to their home to care for her. Why was she in the medical center in Shi'Kahr now?  
  
"She is too—unwell," Sarek began. "But you need not be unduly concerned. In a few days she will be fully recovered."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
It was a reasonable question, and Sarek nodded.  
  
"This has happened before," he said. "Your mother has had a miscarriage. You understand what that is?"  
  
"Mother was pregnant?" Spock asked, his brow furrowed. Neither of his parents had mentioned a pregnancy, and at some level he felt betrayed by their secrecy.  
  
"Yes," Sarek said. "Unexpected. The fetus was not—viable."  
  
As he sat on the edge of his parents' bed and watched his father putting some of his mother's clothes into an overnight bag, he tried to make sense of his words. This had happened before? He couldn't recall his mother ever being away at the medical center—so it must have happened when he was too small to remember—or before he himself was born.  
  
Suddenly snatches of an overheard conversation fell into place—several years ago, in the market plaza, two women eyeing him as he shopped with his mother.  
  
".…necessary medical intervention….impossible otherwise…."  
  
"….not cost effective for one offspring….the Vulcan genome seems to be dominant…the reasonable choice."  
  
His mother had hurried him past—and although he had not asked her why, he knew that the conversation was about him—about his family.  
  
And now he understood exactly what they had been saying that day.  
  
He should not exist—but he did.  
  
His father was right—his mother was home soon—but his father was also very wrong.  
  
His mother was not fully recovered.  
  
She was paler than usual, and quiet, and walked slowly and slightly curled over—but none of that worried Spock. He had seen her this way before—after a viral infection, and once when she had eaten some native plants that had a toxin her body couldn't metabolize.  
  
What did cause him distress was her distance—the way his connection to her through their bond was dim, like a light at the end of a far corridor, instead of vibrant and warm and, at times, overwhelming. When he tried to engage her in conversation she listened politely but asked few questions. When he offered to make her some tea or fetch something for her, she waved her hand softly and said, "Don't bother."  
  
Nor did she touch him—not the random ruffles to his hair that usually annoyed him, nor the sly trails of her arm on his shoulder when he stood close. Now that she did not touch him, he realized how often she used to—and the absence of her physical presence was almost as painful as her emotional withdrawal.  
  
And then one day his father woke him and told him that he was not going to school—that he was, in fact, going to stay with his cousins in Seattle.  
  
"You can make up your school work when you get back," Sarek had told him, as though his school performance was his son's primary concern. At some unspoken level Spock was angry with that assumption.  
  
"How long will I be gone?"  
  
"Uncertain. When your mother is feeling better—after she has some time to rest—then I'll come get you."  
  
Although he had been to his cousins' house at least once every year for family holidays and visits, Spock did not know them well. His aunt Cecilia—or Sis, as his mother called her—and her husband both worked as physicians—his aunt as a pediatrician, his uncle as a surgeon. Holidays at their house were almost always punctuated with the hospital calling one or the other away to attend to an emergency.  
  
When he was younger Spock had thought little about the demands their careers must have made on their family—though his cousins didn't seem to suffer too much from any perceived neglect.  
  
Indeed, his fondest memories of time spent with them were of unsupervised time, often getting into gentle mischief.  
  
His cousin Chris was three years older than Spock. Chris's sisters were like bookends—one a year younger and the other a year older than Spock. More than Chris, Anna and Rachel sought to make Spock their playmate when he visited—or failing that, at least their partner in crime.  
  
He didn't mind—not really—though the energy he spent listening and responding to their constant chatter was tiring. The few times that his visits had lasted more than a couple of days, his aunt would eventually notice his flagging attitude and shoo her daughters away with some excuse to give Spock an afternoon of quiet to recover.  
  
"They do talk a lot," she told him. "Even my own ears get weary of hearing them sometimes!"  
  
At the time Spock had wondered if her comment was a sly commentary about Vulcan hearing—but now when he thinks about his aunt, he is more inclined to assume that her remark was an innocent one without any subtext at all.  
  
His cousins, on the other hand, commented frequently on his differences. They liked his ears, they said, and pronounced their rounded ones boring.  
  
"It is not logical to dislike your own body," Spock said, which for some reason made both Anna and Rachel howl with laughter.  
  
When he arrived in Seattle after his mother's miscarriage, however, his cousins stood somberly and watched Sarek carry two large bags of clothes and supplies to the attic room where a heavy pallet had been set up for Spock. Within a few minutes Sarek was gone—and Spock sat mutely at the kitchen table where his aunt spread peanut butter on a slice of bread and offered him fruit juice that he drank politely despite finding it cloyingly sweet.  
  
"Your mom will be okay," his aunt said, and Spock had stared straight ahead. His aunt didn't know that—she was speculating—something his mother also did when she wanted to reassure him.  
  
Such speculations were not at all reassuring—they were, in fact, an upsetting reminder that the future was not set, no matter how much humans wanted to pretend that it was.  
  
"Can I have it?" Rachel asked, pointing to the untouched bread on his plate.  
  
"Stop that!" his aunt scolded, but Spock lifted his plate to Rachel, saying, "She can have it. I am not hungry."  
  
For two days Spock stayed in the attic room, coming out only to sit with the family at dinner time, rarely eating more than a few mouthfuls. Expecting his father any minute, he focused his Vulcan hearing on the whizzes and rattles of passing hovers and flitters—hopeful when he thought one was landing nearby, and then just as suddenly, filled with despair when the promising sounds died away.  
  
If his uncle hadn't lured him out, he might have spent the next month holed up in the warm attic.  
  
"Which one of you rascals," his uncle said one night when the family sat down to dinner, "changed the settings on the subspace radio? It isn't working at all now, and it was when I left for work this morning."  
  
From the corner of his eye Spock watched Anna and Rachel share a glance with their older brother. He had noticed earlier the siblings' uncanny ability to communicate like this, through looks or posture, in a way that was baffling to him. Perhaps because he was an only child?  
  
An only child. The thought made him think of his mother, and the night he had seen her, bloody and in pain….  
  
"Chris? You know something about this? I told you not to fiddle with the controls on everything. My razor still plays weird music—"  
  
Both Anna and Rachel guffawed, and Chris turned pink. How curious. Something in their behavior struck Spock as not quite sincere, as a performance for his benefit. Even his aunt looked amused, her eyes studiously cast down to her plate, her fork in her hand.  
  
"Well," his uncle sighed, "I guess we won't be making any calls anytime soon."  
  
At that Spock had felt a shiver of alarm. If the subspace radio were broken, his father would not be able to tell him news about his mother.  
  
"I may be able to fix it," he said suddenly, surprising himself. Looking at his uncle carefully, he hoped his illogic was not obvious. He had no idea what was wrong with the radio, nor did he have much mechanical experience with one. His comment had been pure bravado—motivated from fear.  
  
He was deeply ashamed.  
  
But his uncle simple nodded and said, "I hope so. We'll take a look after supper."  
  
The inner workings of the radio were unfamiliar but not difficult to figure out, and for a few hours that evening Spock and his uncle tinkered with it, adjusting the electrical feed, dampening the static field.  
  
"We're getting close," his uncle told him as he gathered up the small hand tools they had been using and putting the radio back on the table. "If I have time this weekend, we'll look at it again."  
  
Even as he agreed, Spock knew he would try to finish fixing the radio on his own—which he did, with great difficulty, and only after two full days spent taking it apart and reattaching every wire, testing all the leads and changing the dials and meters again and again until the sound was clear.  
  
"You made it better than it was originally," his uncle said, genuine wonder in his voice. "You might make a good engineer one day."  
  
Spock said nothing, but he felt a flush of pleasure, not just with his success in fixing the radio, but because of his uncle's praise.  
  
His cousin Chris seemed equally impressed, taking Spock more seriously than he had. Once he asked Spock if he would like to go with him to school—you can see our science lab, Chris had promised—but Spock demurred. As much as he enjoyed learning, he didn't particularly like school—and though he had no proof that a school on Earth would be the same as his own school back home, he was afraid it might be.  
  
Most days he was home with either his aunt or uncle—or when they both had to work, with the sitter who usually picked up the children from school and did light chores around the house for the Thomassons. Although the sitter was pleasant enough, Spock avoided her company, staying in his room or wandering around in the woods that backed up to the houses on the street, leading to a clearing and a picnic area a quarter of a mile through a tree-lined path.  
  
That's where Chris found him one afternoon, bruised and dazed by pinecones thrown by several neighborhood children.  
  
"You're bleeding," Chris said, tentatively touching Spock's forehead. Immediately Spock felt the electric snap of Chris' worry—and he glanced up in time to see Chris frown.  
  
"You shocked me!" his cousin said.  
  
"Vulcans are touch telepaths," Spock said. There. Now his cousin would understand the reason he should keep his hands to himself. But Chris continued to have the same odd look on his face.  
  
"You mean…you can read my mind?"  
  
Even to Spock, Chris looked worried.  
  
"Not unless I touch you," he said, "and not unless I try."  
  
"Can you….try now?" Chris asked, and Spock shook his head.  
  
"Come on," Chris added, starting to take Spock's wrist but pulling back his hand. "We're going to find the idiots who did this to you."  
  
"They ran away, " Spock said. "But I do not believe they intended to injure me. They were just…playing."  
  
He used the human term that included a great many conflicting behaviors. People played when they participated in any number of athletic events.  
  
Anna and Rachel played when they rehearsed many of the behaviors they would need as adults—manipulating realistic dolls, pretending to cook, prevailing on Spock to "play house" and act a part as a husband or neighbor or a sick patient in their interminable dramas.  
  
His mother sometimes told him to play outside—which was her code for letting him know that she wanted to be undisturbed for an hour or two.  
  
"I don't care," Chris said in a huff. "They were throwing pinecones—they ambushed you. We have to make sure they don't do it again."  
  
From Spock's description, Chris quickly figured out who the offenders were—and he promised his cousin they would do something about it the next afternoon.  
  
"It is not necessary," Spock said as he followed Chris back to the house through the woods, the smell of resin heavy in the air. "I am used to—such behavior."  
  
Chris had darted a glance at him then.  
  
His aunt's flitter was parked outside the house when the boys got there, and Chris rushed ahead so he could report what had happened. By the time Spock walked in, his aunt had her medikit out.  
  
"Here," she said, "let me look at that."  
  
He stood still as she eyed the scrape over his brow where one of the heavy green unopened pinecones had grazed him.  
  
"This might sting," his aunt said, squirting a tincture of something silver on a derma-plaster and pressing it against his head.  
  
From beside his mother, Chris said, "Did you feel anything?"  
  
"It did not sting," Spock said, but Chris shook his head.  
  
"Not you," he said, and then, as if he realized how his words sounded, Chris blushed and said, "No, I mean, did you feel anything, Mother?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Spock's aunt said, and Chris shrugged and gave Spock a look. Don't say anything. As clearly as if Chris had spoken aloud, Spock understood the meaning of his look.  
  
How thrilling! So this was what it was like to have a brother. The corner of his mouth quirked up.  
  
"Come on," Chris said, taking two steps at a time up the stairs. Spock thanked his aunt and hurried after him.  
  
Later that night Chris outlined his plan. He and Anna—and yes, Rachel, too, since she threatened to tell the adults the plan if she were excluded—would hide in the woods between the Thomasson house and the path to the picnic clearing. Spock would busy himself there—but in a public way—and wait for the bullies. When they came along, the Thomassons would pelt them with the pinecones they intended to stash.  
  
"I foresee several problems," Spock said. He heard Anna smacking her lips—something she did when she was impatient. "The bullies may not travel down the path anytime soon, making all our waiting a waste of time. If they do travel in the woods, they may run away as soon as they realize they are under attack. And if they do not, you may hurt them with the pinecones."  
  
"That's the point!" Anna said, and Rachel bounced on the bed and said, "Yeah! It's payback time!'  
  
"Or," Chris said, answering Spock's objections one by one, "they may come tomorrow, and they may come down the path near our house, and they may get a smack on the head."  
  
And then something happened that Spock has had occasion to pull out from his memory and examine often. Looking around Chris's bedroom at his three cousins, Spock had an upwelling of gratitude—and more, affection.  
  
And best of all, belonging.  
  
Of course they would not retaliate against the neighborhood children—he would not allow it.  
  
Or he would not participate as the bait.  
  
But it was tempting to contemplate. He could picture how it could play out—the stricken bullies cowed and bloody, offering apologies and promising to be upright citizens from now on….  
  
"Show them that thing you do," Chris said, interrupting his imaginings, and Spock knew what he meant. The touch.  
  
He shouldn't play and make light of his Vulcan heritage. His father would not approve.  
  
Looking around at the expectant faces of his cousins, Spock decided.  
  
"I'll send you a message first," Chris said when all four children sat in a circle, their knees almost touching.  
  
Putting his hands palm up on his thighs, Spock closed his eyes.  
  
"Don't anyone speak," Chris warned, and Spock felt Chris's fingers tickle his own.  
  
"Did you get that?" Chris asked, and Spock opened his eyes.  
  
"I could sense your excitement, but that is all," he said. Chris frowned.  
  
"Let me try again."  
  
Again Spock felt his cousin's fingers on his own.  
  
"Now you are also frustrated," Spock said, and Chris snorted.  
  
"You don't have to be a telepath to know that."  
  
"Let me try!" Rachel piped up, and Chris said, "Oh, alright. But it's not as easy as you think."  
  
"It's like playing mailman," Rachel giggled. "You send me a message, Spock."  
  
Spock felt Rachel's small hand resting on his own. He concentrated on an image of her favorite toy—a large floppy stuffed animal of indeterminate origins—not quite a dog, and not quite anything else.  
  
"Scooter!" Rachel said happily, and Spock nodded.  
  
"Me, me!" Anna said, but before she could try, Spock heard his aunt's footsteps at the end of the hall.  
  
"What are you kids up to?" she called, and Chris sat up and looked at each of the others in turn.  
  
For a moment no one spoke, and then Anna said, "Nothing!" in a singsong voice that Spock associated with deliberate lying.  
  
The girls hopped up together and headed out of the room as their mother passed by. When Spock stood up, Chris met his gaze and smiled.  
  
"Send me a message," Chris said, and for a moment Spock was confused. A message?  
  
And then he understood. His cousin had accepted him—taken him in as one of them—and he wanted something in return.  
  
He extended a finger and Chris pressed his own down. The familiar tingle of connection, but nothing more. Chris's face fell.  
  
"Wait," Chris said as Spock dropped his hand and turned to exit. "Maybe we need something else."  
  
He hurried to the desk pushed against the wall near his bed and pulled open the top drawer. Scraping noises and thumping as Chris stirred his hand through the contents—and then he pulled out a small folded straight razor.  
  
"If we were real brothers," he began, "I bet we wouldn't have this trouble."  
  
He looked up and Spock realized that he expected confirmation of his observation.  
  
"No," Spock agreed. "We would not."  
  
"Then we need to become brothers," Chris said, unhitching the razor.  
  
"That is not possible."  
  
"Not just brothers, "Chris said, "but blood brothers. Here. This is my dad's razor. Hold out your thumb and pull it across the blade, and I'll do it, too. Then we'll mingle our blood together by pressing our thumbs together. That's how you become blood brothers."  
  
For a long moment Spock considered. The razor was certainly unsanitary. The likelihood of injury was guaranteed.  
  
He looked at his hand, up at Chris, and back to his hand. With a swift motion, he pushed his thumb into the razor and pulled it away. A line of green beaded up right away.  
  
"Now me," Chris said, slicing his own thumb across the blade. Red blood began to gush freely—alarming Spock but not seeming to bother Chris—and then Chris reached out and grabbed Spock's hand, rubbing their thumbs together and holding them tight.  
  
For several minutes they stood together, their thumbs bleeding, until Chris's sleeve wicked a thin trickle of blood down his wrist into a large spreading stain.  
  
"Do you feel anything?" Chris asked, his brow furrowed. Clearly he had anticipated something else.  
  
Spock paused for a moment before answering.  
  
"I feel you are my brother," he said.  
  
X X X X X X X X  
  
The first seismic slip is so faint that it barely registers on the instruments.  
  
As soon as Spock unlocks his office, he checks the reports—there it is, almost undetectable. At 0546, below the level where human senses would have felt it. Spock, on the other hand, has Vulcan hearing—and an equilibrium evolved on a planet with near-constant volcanic stresses.  
  
He himself might have missed it if he hadn't been standing still outside his office door, keying it open—that's how slight it was.  
  
The aftershock two hours later, however, shakes the building hard enough to topple an unsecured cabinet. As it starts to fall, he tries to block it with his arm, but PADDs, books, and a picture cube his mother had given him on his last visit home tumble to the floor around him.  
  
The cube shatters immediately. Even as he begins picking up the glass, he feels an unwanted wave of emotion—nothing so strong as sorrow, but something more than annoyance—at losing the images in the cube. Some—of his mother and father together, and a picture of all of the family, himself included, in front of the Thomassons' house last summer—have no replacements. It is a waste of energy to mourn the loss of something he can remember perfectly—he doesn't need a picture cube—but there it is. He can't deny the emotional attachment.  
  
"Here."  
  
With a thump, Nyota drops her bookbag next to the door and takes a step toward him. Did she see his distress at the loss of the picture cube? Why hadn't he heard her come in? Clearly his focus is faulty—normally he is keenly aware of the sound of her footsteps, her breathing, her distinctive rustles and noises.  
  
"Do not come nearer," he says, angling his body away from her gaze.  
  
"Let me—" she begins, but his anxiety that she will see his slip in control sharpens his tone.  
  
"You may get hurt," he says. In his left hand is the pile of glass he has been picking up from the floor. He moves his hand fractionally to indicate it.  
  
As he does he sees that his thumb is bleeding. How odd that he hadn't felt the cut—more evidence of his distraction this morning. The air stirs around him as she leans close and he catches her scent—soap and the fabric of her uniform, and something else, too, that he has never been able to identify, despite spending an inordinate amount of time pondering it….  
  
The air stirs again, and he knows that she has pulled away. Quickly. He turns in time to see her—the odd expression on her face, her distance. He glances down at his bleeding thumb—bleeding with alien blood—and he feels a sharp ache in his side.  
  
He begins picking up the rest of the glass from the floor.  
  
"I'll…get something," she says, backing out of the office and stumbling slightly.  
  
He hears her footsteps pick up speed as she nears the break room. With a fluid motion he stands and pours the glass in his palm into the trash bin in the corner. Before Nyota returns, he pushes the cabinet into place and sets up the fallen PADDs and books. A small pile of glass remains on the floor, and he stoops over it, gingerly tweezering his fingers together to pick it up.  
  
This time he is listening for her, and when she returns to the office he throws away the last of the broken picture cube.  
  
"I brought a plaster," Nyota says, touching the fingers of his injured hand and turning his palm up.  
  
Immediately he feels her concern through her touch—and in horror, he pulls his hand away. Had he closed the connection before she sensed anything from him? Did she pick up his…confusion….about her?  
  
His breathing quickens.  
  
"I'm…sorry," Nyota says, dropping her arms to her side. The expression on her face is unhappy—or cautious. Or something he cannot read. Clearly he has upset her.  
  
"Cadet Uhura," he says, struggling to slow his breathing and calm his agitation, "I was…caught off guard."  
  
Lowering his hand and turning his palm up, he hopes she understands that this is an apology.  
  
"I see," she says. Spock has lived with a human mother long enough to recognize lingering anger in her tone.  
  
So she did pick up his…feelings. And she is upset. At a loss for what to do or say, Spock stands, his hand still out.  
  
With a sudden motion, Nyota rips open the plaster packaging.  
  
"Do you want any—" she begins, gesturing to the bottle of antiseptic she had set on his desk.  
  
"No," he says quickly, and he sees her eyes narrow. Somehow his words anger her.  
  
"No, thank you," he says more slowly.  
  
Bending forward, she examines his bleeding thumb. The blood is seeping from a tiny line now.  
  
"You've done this before," she says as she pulls the tabs from the plaster and sticks it around his thumb. Is she implying that he has had improper thoughts about his other student assistants?  
  
She holds her hands at an unusual angle as she moves—is she showing him how undesired his touch is to her? Undoubtedly.  
  
She will probably request a reassignment as someone else's TA.  
  
That would solve a great many things.  
  
But the idea makes him….unhappy.  
  
"The scar?"  
  
Spock realizes that he has been holding his breath. He breathes out deeply.  
  
"A family trait," he says, and though he knows his words are not precise, he hopes she can hear through to something of their meaning.


	3. Kahs-wan

Chapter Three: Kahs-wan  
  
Disclaimer: I do not profit from writing about characters that I did not create.  
  
Without turning around, she knows that Spock is standing at her shoulder. She feels his hot breath on her neck, stirring an errant wisp of her ponytail.  
  
Why is he this close? It's inappropriate…and…disturbing…and…uncomfortably arousing.  
  
She feels her own breath rush out and she leans back slightly…listening to his ragged breathing—  
  
"You have to go," Gaila says, and Nyota wakes with a start. For a moment she is confused. She holds up her hand to shade her eyes from the slice of light falling across her bed.  
  
Gaila is standing in the doorway, blocking a cadet from entering.  
  
"Because my roommie is here," Gaila says, laughing softly. Although Nyota can't make out his words, she can tell that the cadet in the hallway is urging Gaila to let him in—and Gaila's breathy kisses in response suggest he might be successful.  
  
"Gaila," Nyota calls, sitting up in her bed. "I'm trying to sleep here."  
  
"I'll see you later," Gaila says, one hand on the cadet's chest, her other hand on the door. She leans into another kiss and then steps back and shuts the door forcefully.  
  
"Sorry!" she says cheerfully to Nyota. "I thought he'd never leave!"  
  
"You and I are going to have to have a talk," Nyota says crossly, covering her head with her pillow. Even as she does she knows she won't be able to go back to sleep. "What time is it anyway?"  
  
"A little after 0500," Gaila says, flopping onto her own bed. "The rowers are already at practice. I watched them heading to the bay."  
  
Tossing her pillow and covers off, Nyota stands up.  
  
"I'm not a rower," she says as she heads to the shower. "I shouldn't have to get up this early."  
  
As she turns on the water in the bathroom she hears Gaila on her comm—apparently talking to the disappointed cadet. Fine. I'll head on to work early, she thinks.  
  
Her annoyance with Gaila is tempered by her memory of the dream. She knows why she was dreaming about Commander Spock—today is the day she will have to confront him. She isn't sure what to expect when she does—he can be surprisingly hard to read, or to predict.  
  
Which is itself a surprise. When she was his student, she had looked forward to his lectures, and while she had no illusions that she could beat him in a full-on debate, she had certainly held her own in class discussions—and he had seemed to enjoy them, too.  
  
But perhaps she was wrong. He is different away from the lecture hall—ironically more distant close-up than he had been as her instructor in a class full of cadets.  
  
Working in close quarters has been unexpectedly awkward—and hard—though she has trouble articulating to herself why.  
  
And now the dream. How crazy is that?  
  
She's been his TA for two weeks, and in that time she has worked diligently and steadily, often for several hours at a time without a break.  
  
No more. Last night the TA union and the Academy Advisory Council reached an agreement about scheduled breaks. No assistants can be asked to work for more than two hours without stopping for at least fifteen minutes. The dean promised to send out a memo but Nyota has resolved to speak to Spock about it in person.  
  
Not that she really wants or need breaks—but as a TA union representative, she wants to make a statement of support.  
  
Nyota tries to imagine what Spock's objections might be. Undoubtedly he will say something about the frailty of human endurance—the loss of efficiency because of the breaks, the inconvenience of having to close the lab or reschedule students.  
  
If he's irritated, so be it. She's ready to take him on.  
  
In fact, she's thought of little else since the union meeting. At some level she knows that she is obsessing because she is worried about having to be forceful with him.  
  
But the dream.  
  
In it she hadn't felt powerful or forceful at all. She had been…vulnerable…and willingly so.  
  
This is ridiculous. A stupid dream does not define who she really is.  
  
She finishes her shower and dresses quickly, passing Gaila—already asleep and snoring softly—as she makes her way out of the dorm room.  
  
What had she and Gaila joked about? Trying to catch Commander Spock at work this early? Abruptly veering away from the cafeteria, Nyota heads across the quad to the language building instead. Might as well go ahead and have her say.  
  
The lights in the language building corridors are off, giving her momentary pause. In the distance she hears noises—dim and uncertain, evidence that she is not the only person in the building. Making her way up the three flights of stairs, she heads to Spock's office at the end of the hall.  
  
His door is open and his lights on. No surprise.  
  
For either of them. As usual, he is looking up from behind his desk when she enters, a testament to his acute hearing. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't sneak up on him.  
  
"Cadet Uhura," he says with an unreal equanimity, no trace of emotion in his voice.  
  
"Commander," she says, struggling to keep her own voice from shaking. "May I sit down?"  
  
Instead of answering, Spock motions with his hand and Nyota takes the chair opposite his desk.  
  
"Have you checked your emails this morning?" she begins. She has a vague notion that she will refer him to the dean's note—perhaps asking him to open it and read it while she waits.  
  
But Spock anticipates her.  
  
"The union agreement," he says, and Nyota nods.  
  
"Yes," she says. "This means that I will need to post new lab hours since I won't be able to work straight through the usual time."  
  
When she glances up and sees him staring at her, she is momentarily flustered.  
  
"That means," she says, "that I will need to notify the afternoon students so they don't show up….when the lab is….closed."  
  
Her words slowly grind to a halt. Spock's unblinking gaze has not shifted, and Nyota waits to hear him object. In the harsh overhead light of the office his eyes look black and fathomless.  
  
"It would be more logical to postpone the change until after you meet with the students today. That will save you the trouble of notifying them now."  
  
"But I don't—" Nyota says, loudly. Of course he's right—it would be logical—and easier—to wait and tell the students this afternoon as they show up that the new hours take effect tomorrow.  
  
But doing so feels like a retreat. Or a defeat.  
  
"I don't—want to wait," she says.  
  
"Are your duties as my assistant too demanding?"  
  
"No, it's just that—"  
  
"Then I fail to see how one day will make a difference, particularly since altering the schedule beforehand requires—"  
  
"I'm not waiting."  
  
Nyota crosses her arms and tips up her chin.  
  
"The new rule says that TAs are accorded a fifteen minute break every two hours, and I intend to follow that policy. It is not—logical—to postpone a rule that has been carefully considered and which will have a positive impact on productivity. The TAs will work more effectively if they are adequately rested."  
  
She waits for a beat and then adds, "I know it probably annoys you to have to make this concession to human weakness—but there it is."  
  
As she stands, she notes the flicker of something in his expression.  
  
For the next two hours she stays in the lab, booting up the console and pulling up the records of the students who arrive shortly afterward. Once a second-year cadet is stymied by a glitch in the programming, but Nyota navigates around it without having to call on Spock for help.  
  
All morning Nyota's attention is divided between the students and the large clock on the wall. Two minutes before she has to take the lab down, she signals the students—they can continue working offline if they choose, but she will be on break. It sounds phony when she says it out loud—"I will be on break until 0925," she tells one student who shows up as she is walking out of the lab. The student looks annoyed—and for a moment Nyota reconsiders. Perhaps she should go ahead and get the student's program set up?  
  
But no. She looks up and sees Spock standing outside his door, watching her. If she gives in now, the battle will be lost.  
  
"Sorry," she tells the disappointed cadet. "Regulations."  
  
With an exaggerated flourish she pulls the lab door shut and strides down the hall.  
  
As she passes Spock she notices that he is looking closely at her. Good. He can glare all he wants—she won't be intimidated. She takes a breath and wills herself to walk slowly and deliberately into the break room.  
  
When she makes a cup of tea and sips it gingerly, she leans back into her chair. She feels a flush of satisfaction.  
  
This isn't going to be as hard as she thought.  
  
X X X X X X X X X  
  
"My son informs me that he is being excluded from the physical conditioning program."  
  
Sarek sat ramrod straight on the front edge of the hard chair in the headmaster's office. Spock sat on an adjacent chair, his eyes cast down.  
  
The headmaster, a man younger than Sarek and wearing an ornate heavy robe against the Vulcan heat, folded his hands on the desk where he sat and looked down at the printed records in front of him.  
  
"Incorrect," the headmaster said. "Spock is enrolled in our health and wellness class."  
  
"Yes," Sarek said, and Spock was shocked that his father allowed his anger to show, "he gave us the syllabus. It is designed for off-worlders—and only teaches basic skills for maintaining health. It lacks….rigor."  
  
If the headmaster was surprised by Sarek's display of emotion, he gave no sign.  
  
"We judged it the best course for Spock given his…background. When he reaches the fourth form, he can augment his studies with a self-defense class—if he wishes."  
  
Spock hazarded a glance at his father and was shocked a second time, this time because Sarek's face was flushed and dusky.  
  
"The fourth form is too late to help him prepare for the challenges of the kahs-wan. He turns seven in 92 days."  
  
At last the headmaster reacted.  
  
"I was unaware of your intention for Spock to undergo the kahs-wan."  
  
"All Vulcan children participate—" Sarek said, and the headmaster shook his head.  
  
"All Vulcan children, certainly. As I indicated, I was unaware that you also intended Spock to undergo it."  
  
For a moment Sarek was silent—and Spock studiously avoided looking at him. Then he heard his father take a breath.  
  
"Spock will undergo the kahs-wan as is his right and duty as a Vulcan," he said, slowly and deliberately. "Your task as his educator is to prepare him. I want him enrolled in the defense classes that he needs—now."  
  
"As you wish," the headmaster said, a trace of irritation finally showing in his own voice. "But you must know, Sarek, that your son's performance at this institution has been disappointing at best. His skills and content knowledge are far behind his peers his own age."  
  
Through their bond Spock had felt his father's intense disappointment—and something close to shame. But immediately he felt something else, too—skepticism and determination.  
  
"I would see his instruction," Sarek said, and the headmaster stood and motioned to his aide.  
  
"Please escort Spock back to his class, and show his father where he can observe the lesson."  
  
They had walked past the advanced students in the individualized self-paced classes toward several rooms off to the side. Two other students looked up when Spock and Sarek entered—a young human girl and an Andorian boy, both children of off-worlders working on a construction site of a new power facility being built near Shi'Kahr.  
  
Sarek settled in one corner of the room on a backless bench. Spock took his place at the long table between the other two children.  
  
The teacher, a young Vulcan woman with her hair pulled severely into a topknot, greeted Sarek in heavily-accented Standard. When she turned to the children, she continued to speak Standard, at times so poorly that Spock was unsure what she was asking him. Twice he asked her to repeat her question. Through it all he could feel his father's growing disappointment and alarm.  
  
When the dismissal bell chimed at last, Sarek thanked the teacher and touched Spock lightly on the elbow, motioning him back down the corridor toward the headmaster's office.  
  
Without preamble, his father had said, "How did you determine that Spock would be placed in a class taught to off-worlders?"  
  
"He tested on that level," the headmaster said, opening the file still on his desk and handing it to Sarek. "You can see for yourself. Our earliest assessments place him there."  
  
Sarek frowned as Spock watched his face closely.  
  
"His tests were given in Standard?"  
  
"Yes, of course."  
  
"And the reason?"  
  
"It is his primary language, surely?"  
  
Spock heard his father take and release a deep breath.  
  
"Spock speaks Vulcan at home—as do other Vulcan children," Sarek said, his voice dangerous. "Although his mother has taught him Standard, he is not as fluent. I wish for him to be retested in Vulcan."  
  
"When the next term begins—"  
  
"Now," Sarek said, and the headmaster seemed to be weighing something before he answered.  
  
"Very well. If you insist."  
  
Within days Spock had been retested and moved—surprising everyone when his new scores proved he was actually ahead of his peers in many areas.  
  
And that was when the bullying began.  
  
"His father forced the school to move him," a short boy named Torvek told his two companions at the end of Spock's first day in the accelerated program.  
  
"That is untrue," Spock said. "He asked that I be retested in my first language—"  
  
"See," Torvek added, "they made up a special test so he would be able to pass it. No one else here gets that kind of treatment."  
  
"It was not a special test—"  
  
But before Spock could say anything else, Torvek shoved him hard enough to knock him into one of the other students, who promptly shoved him back.  
  
"Your presence is unwarranted," another boy said, joining the crowd.  
  
Spock had started to respond—but then looking around at the students, he saw not a single sympathetic face. He closed his mouth and tucked his shoulder to the side, pressing his way out of the circle.  
  
"You cannot run away," someone said, almost loud enough to be a shout, but Spock hurried on. Surely if he ignored the insults, the students would tire of making them.  
  
But his enrollment in the suus mahna class consolidated him as a target—both in the class and outside. His mother was startled the first time he came home with a bloodied nose, but Sarek seemed inordinately pleased.  
  
"At least we know he will be ready," he told her, making Spock's stomach lurch. The kahs-wan—looming steadily closer on the horizon. He had overheard his parents speaking in hushed tones months ago about a young neighbor killed during his kahs-wan—a rarity, to be sure, but still a very real possibility.  
  
Ten days in the L-langon Mountains with only the supplies he could carry—people died from accidents, or animal attacks, or dehydration, or disorientation.  
  
From lack of endurance, really. That's why conditioning was critical—why preparation was key.  
  
Why Sarek welcomed the difficulties Spock faced now in his suus mahna classes, in the increased rigor of his academic studies. It was—Spock realized—why his father's counsel to him about the steady bullying was to master himself—to keep himself under control—to turn a blind eye to the forces he could not bend.  
  
His mother, he knew, did not agree.  
  
"He's also human," he overheard her telling his father one night when he came home after a particularly grueling practice session that left him too exhausted to eat an evening meal.  
  
"That is what worries me," Sarek said, and Spock had felt the familiar pang in his side.  
  
"Even Vulcan children get tired!" Amanda said. "You can't push children beyond their endurance and expect them to excel! They need time to recuperate—"  
  
"Amanda," Spock heard his father say, "he will not have time to recover during the ordeal."  
  
And then his mother had gone silent—probably with more of the tears he had seen her shed lately. Clearly the kahs-wan was creating great emotion and grief for her—as it was occupying his mind with worry.  
  
A simple solution was to head out early—to end the stress for his mother—to put to rest any question about his ability to endure.  
  
Early one morning before his father rose, Spock slipped into the kitchen and packed up the dried fruits and vegetables his mother kept stored in the pantry. His camping pack already included a knife, a rope, several energy tubes, and a canteen. When he filled it with the dried food, he hooked it over his shoulders and headed out the front door, locating the distant mountains in the dark as large, solid masses against the starry sky.  
  
By the time his parents realized he was gone, he was almost to the base of the nearest mountain. Twice he had had to backtrack briefly to send his pet sehlat, I-Chaya, back home…or to try to. The second time I-Chaya wandered up behind him, he had sent him home and then had hidden downwind in some rocks until the old sehlat finally gave up snuffling for him and headed back across the cooling sand to the city.  
  
The first night was the hardest—he started at every noise—the howls of a le-matya, the snarls of desert cats, the insistent crowing of predatory birds. Inside his thin, thermal blanket, he shivered and questioned his readiness to take on this task.  
  
But by the morning his resolve returned. Some water and dried fruit restored his confidence and he headed forward into the mountains.  
  
The next ten days passed in a blur—long stretches of boredom navigating the featureless mountain wastes—punctuated by moments of terror…almost stepping on a lethal k'karee, losing his footing on an overpass and skittering fifty meters toward the cliff before finally getting purchase with one toe along the scree and gravel.  
  
When he returned his parents were waiting for him—his father quiet, his mother barely able to contain her relief.  
  
It's over, Spock kept thinking, letting his mother undress him and his father stand for a moment by his bedside as he fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.  
  
When he went to school the next week, he walked taller and met the eye of his chief tormentor without looking away.  
  
Later that afternoon he told his mother that his bloody nose meant that the teachers had moved him to the advanced martial arts class.  
  
It wasn't a lie—not exactly—but it didn't explain what he finally understood.  
  
The bullying would never stop.  
  
He would never be Vulcan enough.  
  
X X X X X X  
  
For the first hour he is hopeful.  
  
Spock sits comfortably on the floor of his bedroom, his loose meditation robe a satisfying heavy weight on his shoulders, the room dark except for the flickering firepot in the corner.  
  
He focuses first on his breathing—slowing it, deepening it, counting his individual breaths, becoming mindful of the air as it flows in and out of his lungs, raising his core temperature, blanking his mind.  
  
Or trying to.  
  
Her hair. The way she usually wears it, pulled back from her face, accentuating her high cheekbones. Friday in the lab he had stood behind her for several moments while she sat at a computer programming a lesson for a cadet struggling to understand Ocarian syntax.  
  
His gaze had drifted from the screen to her hair—the way it cascaded down the back of her neck, the small blue refractions of light in the filaments when she swayed. He imagined reaching out to touch it—to test the texture for himself—  
  
Dismayed by his lack of control, he had left her to continue on her own, ducking to his office to slow his breathing and resolve—yet again—to schedule a longer meditation session after work.  
  
For the first hour he breathes and relaxes.  
  
But it is a fool's errand, and he knows it.  
  
Try as he might, he cannot banish her image from his imagination.  
  
He has never had trouble with attention before. Perhaps he is ill?  
  
Suppressing an obvious show of irritation, he heads to the living area and deliberately turns on his computer, checking his personal mail and looking for something to bring him focus. Idly he notes a message from his mother—not tagged as an emergency, so he saves it for later when this annoying spell of inattention passes.  
  
He opens a note from the dean and scans it quickly—the TA union has prevailed, as Spock had expected them to, in their bid for scheduled breaks. The list of TA reps is attached—and he has to stop himself from opening it and looking for her name. He knows it is there.  
  
This is an unacceptable waste of time and energy.  
  
After a few minutes he has organized his mail and checked his upcoming work list—and still he is unable to settle. With an almost inaudible sigh, he stands up and walks to the bookshelf where he has placed the family ka'athyra.  
  
For only a second he hesitates—and then he stretches forth his hand and picks it up by the curved headstock.  
  
The wood is cool to his touch—almost silky—and he arranges himself on the sofa and sets the ka'athyra in his lap, one hand on the tonal modulator, the other lightly stroking the strings.  
  
Immediately he recognizes the richness of its tone. The ka'athyra his mother had commissioned for him is lovely—but its sound is crisp and bright. The family heirloom is at least 300 years old, its sound complex and mellow.  
  
He runs his fingers through the scales and chords he had practiced for hours as a young boy—and to his relief, he feels himself sinking into the familiar reverie, calmed by the motion and the music.  
  
Spock is never unaware of time—even in his deepest sleep he marks its passage—but the closest he comes to losing his sense of forward motion is when he plays the ka'athyra.  
  
For 3.35 hours he plays, strange atonal strumming that serves no other purpose than to blunt his racing thoughts and offer him a measure of peace. At some level he is aware that his neighbors might object to the noise—it isn't loud, but it isn't typical of the music humans usually choose for entertainment.  
  
He amuses himself briefly by recalling a scene in a Conan Doyle story when Sherlock Holmes had similarly annoyed Watson with discordant scratchings on the violin.  
  
When he has not thought of her for at least an hour, he judges that he has recovered his equilibrium enough to fall asleep at last. He replaces the ka'athyra on its place on the bookshelf and notes the darkened patch on the soundboard where his hand has rested.  
  
Within minutes of stretching out onto his bed he is asleep—and soon after that he is aware that he is slipping into a lucid dream.  
  
As a boy he had often been troubled by his dreams. His mother reassured him that dreaming was a normal brain function—that her own dreams were often humorous or entertaining in their absurdity.  
  
If his father ever dreams, Spock can't say. He has never asked him—not that his father wouldn't tell him, but he is afraid what his answer might be. If his father doesn't dream—if Vulcans rarely dream—what does it mean that Spock sometimes does?  
  
Often he uses his lucid dreams productively—finishing computations he began earlier in the day, or thinking through a programming problem and coming up with a solution that he implements when he wakes.  
  
If anyone were to ever ask, he can say that his dreams are…useful.  
  
Tonight his dreams are not useful at all. He sees himself in the lecture hall and knows, with the certainty that one feels in dreams, that Nyota is sitting on the front row.  
  
This, then, is his advanced phonemics class—sixty students meeting last spring twice a week, most of them fulfilling a language requirement, most of them moderately bored, but Nyota's bright presence front and center making the class, if not pleasant, then at least satisfying.  
  
Despite knowing this is a dream, Spock is disturbed by it—by his inability to turn it to his advantage. Instead of being able to steer himself into some useful activity, he sees himself engaged with Nyota in an argument they had had last spring during one class.  
  
She had asked for a point of clarification when he had paused in his lecture. So few students ever asked him to repeat anything that her raised hand caught him off guard.  
  
"Commander," she said, "in your notes you show the rate of attrition to be 21.45, but you just said that the baseline was closer to 32.7. Which is the more accurate number?"  
  
Spock's first reaction was to feel annoyed. The discrepancy in the numbers was easy enough to explain—except that no human had ever asked him to. He looked up from his notes and considered the young cadet sitting in front of him.  
  
Was that the first time he had noticed how her hair swept over her shoulder when she leaned forward to write on her PADD?  
  
"If you had been listening," he said, "you would have noted that the lower number is true only in the coastal population. The loss of phonemic constancy in the mountain dwellers of both Turivia and its sister planet is reflected in the higher number."  
  
She nodded briefly and wrote something down—and he realized that she seemed genuinely interested in the information.  
  
Unlike many humans, who asked questions for purposes other than gathering data—to posture for their peers, for instance, or to show off for the professors—Nyota Uhura had a rare understanding of the content of the lecture—and she wasn't shy about it.  
  
Before he could continue, however, her hand was in the air again.  
  
"Commander," she said, "I understand the way the formula was applied. What I don't understand are the actual numbers."  
  
"Explain."  
  
"32.7 is too high. If I am doing the math correctly—"  
  
"If you believe 32.7 too high, then you are not doing the math correctly."  
  
"But, Sir," she said, her brow furrowed, "the formula says that 32.679 is the correct answer. Or perhaps you intended it to be rounded up?"  
  
At that she looked him in the eye and he saw the same expression that he had sometimes seen on his mother's face—defiance, or determination, or something close to triumph.  
  
He took a step back and said, "I stand corrected. Your calculations are more precise than mine."  
  
She had nodded then, curtly, quickly, and he had continued the lecture.  
  
It is as much a memory as it is a dream—and he is suddenly aware that he is awake, uncomfortably aroused. 0453. He might as well get up and begin his day.  
  
If he is tired he doesn't let himself feel it. Endurance, after all, is a product of conditioning.  
  
Despite having regular office hours, Spock almost never has students requesting help. His office is a sanctuary—a quiet space for research and preparation—or it had been until he had hired Nyota as his assistant.  
  
This morning when he turns on the light it leaps into sharp relief, his desk with neatly stacked flimplasts he needs to attend to.  
  
Without turning on the light in the break room, he heats water for tea. One cup, or the entire kettle? Nyota is often early, though not this early. He opts for a single cup.  
  
Balancing the cup of hot tea on the edge of his desk, he is surprised to hear the distant echo of the front door of the building open and fall shut, loud. At the first footstep he feels his heartbeat quicken. Why is she here now? He hasn't had time to immerse himself in work yet—a helpful diversionary tactic when she is around.  
  
Logically she will check in with him first before opening the lab—and as her footsteps reach the top of the landing, he braces himself in his chair and trains his eyes on the door.  
  
"Cadet Uhura," he says with great effort. Can she hear how much energy he expends to keep his voice even and controlled?  
  
"Commander," she says, watching him closely. His emotions, then, must be apparent to her. He feels a wave of mortification. "May I sit down?"  
  
He doesn't dare answer until he regains control of his voice. Instead, Spock motions with his hand and Nyota takes the chair opposite his desk.  
  
"Have you checked your emails this morning?" she begins. He flushes, remembering his unaccountable need to see her name on the dean's attachment.  
  
"The union agreement," he says, and Nyota nods.  
  
"Yes," she says. "This means that I will need to post new lab hours since I won't be able to work straight through the usual time."  
  
Why is she telling him this? The dean's email was clear.  
  
"That means," she says, "that I will need to notify the afternoon students so they don't show up….when the lab is….closed."  
  
The dean's note, clear as it was about the TA breaks, did not specify when they had to start. He weighs her plan to contact students in advance against the efficacy of posting a notice and letting students begin the new hours tomorrow. No question. Waiting makes more sense.  
  
But when he tells her this, she tilts her head and her raises her voice 2.3 decibels.  
  
"But I don't—" Nyota says. "I don't—want to wait."  
  
Her tone catches him by surprise.  
  
"Are your duties as my assistant too demanding?"  
  
"No, it's just that—"  
  
"Then I fail to see how one day will make a difference, particularly since altering the schedule beforehand requires—"  
  
"I'm not waiting."  
  
Nyota crosses her arms and tips up her chin. The weak morning light is just coming in through the window behind her, casting her expression in shadow and making her harder to read than usual.  
  
"The new rule says that TAs are accorded a fifteen minute break every two hours, and I intend to follow that policy. It is not—logical—to postpone a rule that has been carefully considered and which will have a positive impact on productivity. The TAs will work more effectively if they are adequately rested."  
  
He has no intention of disputing the union ruling, but before he can say anything, she adds, "I know it probably annoys you to have to make this concession to human weakness—but there it is."  
  
Her emphasis on human is deliberate—and confusing.  
  
She does not know.  
  
As a child he had become inured to the stares that inevitably followed him—and the sotto voce comments about his human heritage, so evident to other Vulcans.  
  
But unless he tells them—or someone else tips them off—humans do not know that he is anything other than a Vulcan—a curiosity on a planet where off-worlders are still the minority.  
  
What hubris to think that Nyota knows his history…he is one professor out of many, not a celebrity.  
  
Her footsteps retreat to the lab and he hears her open the door and switch on the computers. Almost immediately several students arrive, and Spock reigns in his impulse to follow Nyota and clear up her confusion.  
  
The language practice programs set up in the lab are highly individualized, offering intense practice in a multitude of Federation—and even some non-Federation—languages. More often than not the sequence of lessons requires some intricate programming to insure the most efficacious looping—and Spock leaves his office several times an hour to walk through the lab, answering any programming issues Nyota identifies.  
  
Today he hesitates. Has his proffered help in the past been too…patronizing? Obviously she is quite capable of solving most of the programming issues on her own. Is his unnecessary help the source of her anger this morning? If she is angry? He isn't certain.  
  
In the past when he was aware of someone's anger, he made a point of avoiding further contact for a time. That strategy, however, has been somewhat unsatisfactory—too often, the angry party continues to be angry until he addresses their concerns directly.  
  
Nyota's anger doesn't make him want to avoid her. It makes him want to end it as soon as possible—to restore some balance in their relationship so that he can focus again and do his work more efficiently.  
  
Offering a cup of tea during her first break might be an acceptable overture. He steps into the hall to wait for her to close the lab.  
  
Another cadet is waiting to start a lesson but Nyota demurs softly. Spock is surprised. It doesn't seem in character for her to make another student wait for services. Is it possible that the work schedule he has arranged for her is too arduous after all?  
  
She doesn't look fatigued as she closes the lab door and walks down the hall. In fact, she looks invigorated. Instead of meeting his eye as she passes, she looks ahead to the break room and hurries inside.  
  
Spock cannot shake the feeling that she is avoiding him—that her hurried pace is a message to stay away.  
  
He gives up the idea of a cup of tea and returns to his office, pulling his PADD across the desk and calling up a schematic for a lesson he has to teach later this afternoon.  
  
This is going to be so much harder than he anticipated.


	4. Plomeek

**Chapter Four: Plomeek**

**Disclaimer: I do not own nor profit from writing about these characters.**

As she does every Tuesday morning, Nyota arrives at the language building by 0700 to sort Spock's mail. After three weeks as his TA she knows the routine—delete the numerous requests for him to appear as a speaker at various conferences; save the responses from other researchers to his own queries for information.

 _How typical_ , she thinks. _If he approaches you, okay. Otherwise, forget it._

But that isn't fair. The Commander is standoffish—certainly—but he isn't completely unapproachable.

Just yesterday he had come into the break room as she began her lunch and asked if he could join her. She tried to cover her surprise—and, if she is honest, her slight discomfort—by offering him some of her fruit salad.

"My mother's specialty," she said, holding out a piece of gingered pineapple.

But he was quick to refuse, tucking his hand conspicuously away from her.

She had grown hot with embarrassment, and then hotter still with anger.

 _Her human touch_. There it was again, that cultural divide that keeps tripping her up.

Spock isn't the only non-human she has close contact with. She understands the importance of respecting boundaries, of recognizing taboos—but the Commander's distaste is barely disguised. He could at least try not to let his prejudice show.

Still, he had sat with her while she ate, asking her questions about her own classes this semester, about her ideas for her senior thesis.

And then he had made them both tea and they sat for a few minutes in companionable silence.

"Don't you want any lunch?' she had asked as she was finishing her tea and gathering her things, and he had tilted his head as if considering a question of great import.

"I generally eat an evening meal," he said. She nodded and headed back to the lab.

For an hour she sorts his mail and files his most recent notes into the separate categories of research he is doing—a collaboration with the cyber-intelligence department on a new protocol for syntactical programming; a plant growth hormone experiment that two graduate students are running under his direction; a theoretical construct he is designing to explain quasar drift.

Although the Commander had sent her a message last night that he would be late this morning, she is surprised when he is still not in the office by the time she has to open the lab.

An emergency? His text hadn't said. He might be sick—he had left the office abruptly yesterday afternoon.

She could call him—he gave her his personal comm number when she started working for him.

But something stays her hand. She suspects he would not welcome her intrusion into his privacy, even if he is ill or dealing with an emergency.

All morning she looks up expectantly each time someone enters the lab—and every time she is disappointed when he doesn't appear.

A few minutes before noon she alerts the three students working that she will be taking a lunch break. One cadet, a second year who is almost finished with an advanced tutorial rotation, opts to continue working. The other two students seem grateful for the excuse to shut down their computers and leave.

As she walks out of the lab, Nyota can see that Spock's office lights are still off and his door shut. He really might be sick, she thinks, pulling her comm from her pocket.

Before she can dial him, she turns the corner into the break room and is startled to see him there, uncapping a silver thermos and pouring something lavender into two bowls.

"Commander!" she says, aware that she sounds both relieved and annoyed.

"Cadet Uhura," he says, placing the thermos on the table and motioning for her to sit. "If you are interested, I brought a Vulcan dish for you to try. Perhaps a trade? If you still have some of your mother's fruit—"

"Yes, of course," Nyota says, stepping lightly to the cooler and taking out her bagged lunch. She opens the container of gingered pineapple and sets it on the table between them.

"What is this?" she asks, sitting down and picking up the spoon Spock has placed in the bowl.

"My mother's recipe for _plomeek_ soup," he says, sitting across from her and picking up his own spoon.

Nyota gingerly tastes the soup. It is both tangy and savory—an odd combination, but not unpleasant. She takes a second taste and recognizes hints of thyme and cumin.

"It's good," she says, meeting Spock's gaze. He nods briefly and says, "May I?'' He spears a small piece of pineapple with a fork and she watches as he lifts it to his mouth.

"It's hot," she warns. "The ginger is pretty spicy."

"Very agreeable," Spock says, chewing the pineapple, and Nyota laughs despite herself.

"I'm sorry," she says, smiling, "but your face—you don't look like you are enjoying it. Don't worry. It won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it."

His face changes then—a rapid succession of expressions she cannot read. Has she offended him? And just as they were starting to be comfortable in each other's company, at least a little bit.

"I would tell you," Spock says, his brows knit together, "if I did not like it. Why would your feelings be affected by my response?"

There it is again—that oddity in how they see things that keeps throwing her off.

"How would you feel," she says with some asperity, "if I said I didn't like your mother's plomick soup?"

"The word you mean is _plomeek_ ," Spock says, "and your appreciation of it is based on your taste receptors, your past experiences with similar cuisines, your willingness to try something unfamiliar—why would my…. _feelings_ …be affected in any way?"

"I see," Nyota says. "It must be a _human_ reaction."

She takes another sip of soup and then says, "I thought you didn't eat lunch."

She looks up from her bowl and waits for him to respond. In the silence she can hear the wind shaking the window—the last vestiges of a storm blowing out to sea—and a sudden shaft of sunlight pours in and falls across Spock's face.

In the light his eyes are warm and brown— _how had she not noticed that before_?

"A mistake on my part," he says, and she finishes her soup without being able to say a word.

X X X X X X X

The front door was open, and as he usually did in the late afternoon after school, Spock made his way through his parents' house to the kitchen where his mother would be working, a snack already made and waiting for him on the table.

This afternoon, however, his father was in the kitchen instead—with no snack of sliced flatbread and fruit arranged on a plate.

And no mother, either. How unlike her to be absent when he got home. For a moment Spock felt a flicker of worry—but his father radiated calm, not concern, through their bond.

"Sit," Sarek said, nodding toward the chair opposite his own. "I wish to speak to you about an important matter."

 _Where is Mother?_ —Spock almost spoke the words aloud, but he paused. His father would already know he was concerned, or at least curious, and might see his interruption as inappropriate or disrespectful. He carefully pulled the chair from the table and sat.

Since his successful _kahs-wan_ , Spock had been able to restrain his impulses more effectively. Not speaking, for instance—six months ago he would have annoyed his father with his question. Now he could wait.

He felt a measure of pride in his growing maturity—and he sat up straight and looked steadily at his father.

"You are gaining more control," Sarek said, a hint of approval in his voice. Spock flushed and looked down at the table.

Sarek leaned forward and said, "We are having company for the evening meal tonight. When your mother returns—"

Again Spock almost interrupted to ask about her—and again he stayed silent. He hazarded a glance at his father and saw his normally impassive expression. If his father sensed his impatience, he was not upset by it. Spock took a breath and let it out slowly.

"You will be required to help us with the meal preparations. Do you have school work to do before that time?"

In fact Spock didn't. Just this week he had been moved to an individualized learning center—and could set his own pace and work as long as he wanted. For the past two afternoons he had lingered longer than the other students at school, ostensibly to continue a lesson, but partly to avoid the other students as they gathered briefly before catching their various transports home.

Before Spock could answer his father, he heard a bustle of activity at the front door—his mother, undoubtedly, and from the sounds, carrying heavy bundles. He jumped up from his chair and followed Sarek out the kitchen.

"You're already home!" Amanda said.

"Obviously," Sarek said, and Spock felt an emotion ripple between his parents. Humor? Irritation? He couldn't tell. Often his mother felt compelled to comment on the obvious—and just as often, Sarek chided her for it. That his mother continued to do it suggested it was what she called a _joke_.

Then Spock felt another surge, this time from his mother, and he looked up at her as he took the large bag from her left arm.

"Have you told him yet?" she asked, and Sarek replied, "We were beginning."

As quickly as he had felt some unidentified emotion from his mother, he felt her closing herself off from him. Most of the time his awareness of his parents was steady and quiet—like a faint light or distant noise in the background of his consciousness—but sometimes they retreated into silence…shielding him, keeping him from being overwhelmed by their adult concerns.

He felt their distance now—and he quickly set his bundle on the kitchen table and turned to watch his mother as she opened the cooler and stood putting in vegetables from her market bag.

Something in her motions seemed forced, though when she looked up at him, she smiled briefly and glanced up at Sarek. Spock felt his father's hand touch him lightly on the arm, directing him to a chair.

"Have you eaten anything?" Amanda said, pulling out a chair beside Spock. "Did you get a snack when you got home?"

"I am not hungry."

It was true. He was too focused on parsing out the unspoken communication between his mother and father to want to eat.

With a sudden motion, Sarek sat in a chair on the opposite side of the table. He steepled his hands and leaned forward slightly.

"I indicated that we are to have visitors this evening," he said, and Spock nodded. Visitors were not unusual in their home. His father's many work contacts and his mother's circle of friends, both off-worlders and Vulcan neighbors, were occasional dinner guests. Why did his father confer such import on tonight's company?

"Now that you have completed your _kahs-wan_ , it is time to consider your future," Sarek said, looking away from Spock briefly, flashing a glance at Amanda. "It is time to arrange your _koon'ul_."

 _A betrothal?_ Spock felt his mother stiffen beside him. His father's expression was unexpectedly guarded.

"T'Lea and her family will join us for the evening meal," Sarek said. "If you are….compatible…and it is amenable for both families, we will continue negotiations for the _koon'ul_."

A _betrothal._ Again the unfamiliar word. He tried to imagine what it would mean—beyond the obvious. A bond mate chosen, a thorny decision made and put aside until it was needed when….

His mind ran up against the never-spoken reality that every Vulcan knew—and stepped aside it neatly.

Someone to share his thoughts with. Perhaps a friend.

And later, when he would leave his parents' home—he would have someone to make a home with.

He sighed in relief and looked up at his father. Sarek was watching him closely, and though Spock could not feel any emotion from him, he had the distinct impression that his father was pleased.

His mother, on the other hand—

"I could use some help with the meal," Amanda said, pushing back her chair and standing up abruptly.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in quiet food preparation—washing and trimming the tough outer leaves from the woody stems of fresh _plomeek,_ chopping them into pieces and arranging them in his mother's covered tagine to soften while baking.

Afterwards was the part of the preparation that Spock secretly enjoyed—smashing the cooked _plomeek_ with a stone pestle, turning it into a purple paste that was diluted with water and cooked until smooth.

As she always did, Amanda set up one area of the kitchen as Sarek's workspace, piling up leafy greens for him to rinse and tear into bite size pieces. She busied herself with arranging slices of fruit on a platter—imported apples and citrus as well as _kaasa_ and _hirat._

"Taste," she said, taking the spoon Spock was using to stir the _plomeek_ soup. She lifted it to his mouth and he took a reluctant sip. Using the preparation utensils this way was _unsanitary_ —though he knew better than to object.

Not that his mother would get angry, but she would feel slighted somehow—as if he objected to her personally.

"Well?" she asked.

"It is not as flavorful as it usually is," he said, and even as he did, he knew his mother would be upset.

He and his father had, on more than one occasion, spoken about his mother's sensitivity to criticism of her cooking.

"Humans have difficulty discerning certain nucleotides that affect flavor," Sarek had said. "When your mother cooks, she relies on you to correct for her deficiencies. She appreciates your commentary."

"She appears angry," Spock said, and his father had not contradicted him.

"Also a human deficiency," he said, "to take offense at the truth."

And then, as if to soften his words, Sarek added, "But your mother knows that food preferences are highly individualized—dependent on the biology and experiences of the individual. As she would say, you cannot please everyone. I have found that to be true—in many things."

Instead of being angry that evening, Amanda dipped the spoon back into the soup and tasted it for herself.

"You're right!" she said, hurrying to the cabinet where she stored spices and herbs. "I left out the cumin and the thyme. Where's my mind today? Don't answer that," she said sharply, turning and giving a deliberate glare at Spock—another of her _jokes_ , he knew.

By the time T'Lea and her family arrived, the meal was ready and Spock had bathed and changed into a clean school uniform—a waste of time and energy during the seasonal drought, he thought—but Sarek had not objected when Amanda insisted.

The two children sat next to each other at one end of the large formal dining table made from blonde _lapan_ wood. Sarek and Amanda sat together on one side; T'Lea's parents sat across from them.

From the corner of his eye Spock stole glances at T'Lea as he ate the first course of chopped greens. Surprisingly petite, she was several inches shorter than he was, even sitting. Her hair was much lighter than his, and most startling were her eyes—blue and fringed with thick brown lashes.

He said nothing to her—nor did she speak.

"Spock," his mother said, "remove the plates and help me with the soup."

Glad for a reason to move, Spock jumped up, bumping his knee against the table, shaking the glasses and spilling some of his own beverage. He flushed hard—not daring to look at T'Lea. His mother's reassurance flooded him—she was watching from the door—and he sent back a flicker of annoyance.

 _He is not a child_ —his father's words came across their familial bond. His mother's _hmpfh_ was just as clear.

The soup tureen was heavy but Spock took his time and set it without a tremor on the utilitarian sideboard against one wall of the dining area. As Amanda ladled the soup into bowls, he carried them to T'Lea and her family first and then served his parents and finally himself.

"A human custom," his father said, and Spock was startled to realize that he had not paid careful attention to the conversation around him. What was a human custom? Preparing a meal for guests?

Traditionally, Vulcan guests prepared the meal or at least pitched in to help—but then so did Spock's cousins from Seattle when they visited. And his elderly Vulcan aunt always had refreshments ready when he and his parents visited her.

Perhaps his father's observations about food preferences extended to food preparation as well—it depended on the individual.

Or maybe his father was talking about something else. Spock tried to pick up the thread of the conversation.

"How do you decide which ones to adopt?" T'Lea's father said. Like Sarek, T'Lea's father was tall and broad across the shoulders, his dark, wavy hair cut in the traditional style.

T'Lea's mother, by contrast, was petite like her daughter, her eyes a pale blue. During the meal she kept her gaze down on her food, hardly saying a word.

"Human customs have as much significance as Vulcan ones do," Amanda said, and Spock thought he heard some heat in her voice. He looked immediately at his father. Sarek's expression had not changed, but Spock sensed….unease.

"I did not suggest otherwise," T'Lea's father said smoothly. "My question was how you determine which customs you observe. Surely not all. That would be confusing for….everyone."

Amanda had opened her mouth to respond but Sarek beat her to it.

"We have found that our collective experience as a family is both richer and more expansive because we honor both human _and_ Vulcan customs."

His words hung in the air—a rebuke of sorts, Spock was certain.

For an awkward moment no one spoke.

"Of course," T'Lea's father said, putting his spoon down on the table.

"Would you care for more?" Amanda said, offering to take his bowl.

"Thank you, no. It was…an unusual version of a soup I normally find quite refreshing."

Spock darted a glance at his mother—her cheeks were pink with the heat of the late afternoon.

"I, too, am finished," T'Lea said, and before he could stop himself, Spock said, "But you haven't eaten any of it."

At once he was abashed—where was his newfound ability to wait to speak?

"Lady Amanda," T'Lea said, ignoring Spock's outburst, "I do not care for the soup. That is why I did not finish it."

Spock felt a wave of embarrassment—though whether it was his own or his mother's, he was unsure.

"I see," Amanda said. "Well, we have fruit, too. Spock—"

Before she could tell him to, Spock rose and hurried to the kitchen to retrieve the platter of assorted fruit.

Although he was not particularly fond of either apples or oranges, he carefully speared several slices for his own plate.

"These are Terran," he said to T'Lea, offering to put an apple slice on her own plate.

"I do not want it," T'Lea said without looking at Spock.

The rest of the meal was over quickly—and soon T'Lea and her parents were gone.

That night as he lay in bed, Spock listened to his parents working in the kitchen, talking in hushed tones.

"Now you see the wisdom of meeting with the healer first," Sarek said. Spock could hear his mother's voice but was unable to distinguish her words.

"Because it is too unfamiliar," Sarek said in response. "In this matter we must do things as tradition demands—"

Again Spock could tell that his mother was speaking, but her words were too soft to hear.

And then a door shutting—hard—and his parents' footfalls coming down the hall and passing his room.

"He's my son, too," Spock heard his mother say before she shut the bedroom door.

He reached out tentatively to feel her presence—and there it was, quiet and unhappy.

Rolling over, Spock felt a catch in his side.

When he arose the next morning, his father had already left for his office in the city. He found his mother where she often was as the sun rose, sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea.

Looking up, she smiled and held out her arm—and though lately he had dodged her gestures of affection more often than not, he slipped close enough to allow her to hug him, quickly.

For a few minutes he busied himself with breakfast—pouring himself a cup of tea and dipping some flatbread into it. As he ate he watched his mother closely. She didn't seem upset this morning—far from it. Spock felt a measure of relief.

"Mother," he began, wanting to talk but not wanting to upset her, "what happens now?"

Amanda set down her tea cup and frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"T'Lea," Spock said. "When is the _koon'ul_?"

At once he was sorry he had spoken. His mother's face fell.

"I'm….I'm not sure," Amanda said. Something in her tone was odd, as if she were telling an untruth.

Spock set his own cup down and peered at his mother.

"I don't think—" Amanda began, and then she sighed loudly and placed her hands on either side of her face.

"Oh, Spock," she said, her voice wavering, "I don't think…that T'Lea's family will agree to the _koon'ul_."

"Why?"

It was a simple question, not fraught with overtones or disappointments. Yet as he watched his mother's face drain of color, he felt alarm, and then anger.

"I should have listened to your father," Amanda said, an uncharacteristic note of bitterness in her voice. "But I thought a meal together—"

She paused, apparently unable to continue, and Spock walked quickly to the sink and rinsed out his tea cup. With his back to his mother, he said, "They found me unacceptable."

"No, Spock," Amanda said quickly, "they had…other concerns."

Taking a deep breath, Spock stood for a moment at the sink, looking down into the polished stone.

"They do not like humans."

"That may be," Amanda said, "or it may simply be that they are afraid."

 _That was unlikely._ Spock turned to face his mother.

"Why would they be afraid, Mother?"

But instead of answering, his mother shook her head.

Her silence frightened him more than her words had.

They did not speak of T'Lea or the _koon'ul_ for many months—in fact, Spock realized later, until his parents came to retrieve him from his cousins' house in Seattle after his mother's miscarriage.

The week after his return, Spock looked up one evening to see his father standing at the door of his bedroom.

"I must speak to you," Sarek told him, and Spock tilted his head and waited for an explanation. Hesitating a moment, Sarek took a step inside Spock's room and said, "We will meet with a healer—and discuss your _koon'ul_."

Unable to stop himself, Spock blurted out, "But Mother said that T'Lea's family objected."

"We are also meeting with the parents of K'Loh'r T'Mir T'Pring. Both are environmental engineers. They recently returned from a work assignment on Earth."

At that Spock had looked up at his father and met his gaze. _They are familiar with humans._

The thought passed between them.

"If you have school work or chores, finish them quickly," Sarek said, stepping back into the hall. "We leave after the evening meal."

The actual meeting with T'Pring and her family was brief. The meeting room was one of many set aside for formal gatherings in a large ornate building on the outskirts of the city. Already seated were T'Pring and her parents. On the opposite side of the room was the healer T'Sala, a wizened woman with thinning white hair, clearly the oldest person Spock had ever seen. She wore a thick winter robe, even in the mid-day heat, and her hands were muffed with gloves.

Walking ahead of his mother, Spock lowered his eyes respectfully and waited for T'Sala to acknowledge him. To his surprise she rose and touched the top of his head—a benediction of sorts, he thought later, though at the time he didn't question her actions.

"You are Spock," she said, her voice surprisingly strong, and he nodded, still keeping his eyes cast down.

"I have heard of your accomplishments," the old healer said. The unexpected praise was shocking—not just to him, but to his parents. He felt their surprise flutter through their bond.

Spock knew he ought to respond, but he was at a loss for words. Pride in one's accomplishments was frowned on—and self-promotion was the height of bad manners. The silence stretched on until at last he was able to say, "Thank you, Lady T'Sala. You honor me."

"Your mother has taught you well," T'Sala said, and again Spock felt both his own and his parents' surprise.

And suddenly he understood. T'Sala's comments were not meant for him. He glanced up at T'Pring and her parents.

T'Pring was almost as tall as Spock, and as dark. Her eyes were large and luminous—though when Spock made eye contact, she looked away.

Her parents, on the other hand, were looking at him intently.

"You will talk," T'Sala said, directing her comments to the adults in the room. She motioned to Spock and then to T'Pring to follow her as she walked toward a door in the rear of the room.

The door led to a small indoor garden, severely trimmed and cultivated with almost mathematical precision. Three benches were arranged evenly around the perimeter, like sides of a triangle. T'Sala sat on one and motioned for Spock and T'Pring to sit on the other benches.

"Your parents must talk of adult things," she said, "but you must talk about what is more important. T'Pring, tell me of yourself."

As Spock watched, T'Pring sat primly and folded her hands in her lap. She looked at neither Spock nor T'Sala, but stared straight ahead and spoke in a tone that sounded like rehearsed indifference.

"I am K'Loh'r T'Mir T'Pring. My parents are engineers. My older sister is at the Vulcan Science Academy studying astrophysics. I prefer architecture as an area of study. Our sojourn on Earth lasted 9 months, 17 days, and 2 hours."

 _Was he expected to sum up his own life this way?_ Spock felt a moment of anxiety.

"Spock," T'Sala said, and Spock cast about in his mind for what to say first. That he valued math and science equally—and music, too, especially the _ka'athyra—_ that _suus mahna_ left him bruised every day but offered him a relief that nothing else could…

Before he could speak, however, T'Sala said, "What would you ask T'Pring?"

 _Ask T'Pring?_ Should he ask her something? Was this in the category of _being polite_ , that mysterious set of social cues his mother always tripped him up with?

Asking questions of a stranger was difficult. Asking questions when he didn't care to know the answers was even more so.

But apparently he must.

"How did you enjoy your time on Earth?"

"It was cold."

There. He had discharged his duty. Spock looked up at T'Sala just in time to see an unmistakable look of amusement cross her features.

When his own turn came, his recitation was as short as T'Pring's had been—and as pointless, he thought later. They were still strangers when they parted.

And strangers still at the end of their first meal together a week later, one that Spock's parents hosted. Unlike the meal with T'Lea, however, this one was more traditional. While Sarek showed T'Pring's family through their house and gardens, T'Pring stayed behind in the kitchen, washing _plomeek_ and helping Spock pound it into purple mush when it was baked.

She spoke little, and Spock spoke less. Instead, they focused on the task at hand—and when Spock called his mother at last to come season the bland soup, Amanda shook her head.

"Let T'Pring taste it, too" she said, and T'Pring leaned forward a fraction and dipped her spoon into the large pot.

"Well?" Amanda asked, and T'Pring straightened up and said, "Acceptable."

"But—" Spock began. One look from his mother silenced him.

_This is how she likes it. How they like it._

He tried to meet her gaze but she turned away, carrying the soup bowls to the dining area.

So. This was what it meant to arrange a _koon'ut_. A silent compromise. An abnegation of part of who he was.

" _I am S'chn T'Gai Spock. My father works for the Vulcan government and my mother is a teacher. I have no siblings. I am taking advanced theoretical physics and calculus, and I play the ka'athyra. I returned last week from a trip to Earth that lasted 27 days, 3 hours, and 13 minutes. And my mother is human. I am both Vulcan and human."_

" _T'Pring," T'Sala had said after his recitation, "What would you ask Spock?"_

" _Nothing, Lady T'Sala," T'Pring had said evenly. "He has told all that needs to be said."_

X X X X X X X X

"The healers are trying medicine first," Amanda said, her image tiny and wavering over the subspace receiver in Spock's apartment. "If he doesn't improve, then we will consider surgery."

"Why did you keep this from me?"

To his dismay, Spock hears a note of petulance in his voice. His mother does, too—she frowns at him.

"I sent you an email last week," she says, and Spock recalls the note he had set aside to read later. Forgetfulness like this is uncharacteristic—and alarming.

He resolves to add more exercise to his evenings.

"Are you unwell?" his mother asks, and Spock considers her question a moment before answering. Is he unwell? He is troubled—and distracted—but those are different.

"I am not unwell, Mother," he says. "Please tell Father that I will speak to him later in the week to see how he is responding to the medication."

"Certainly," Amanda says. "Perhaps you can visit soon—and see for yourself how he is doing."

With a quirk of his lip, Spock says, "Perhaps."

It is an old _joke_ between them—Amanda's quiet reference to visits home. Spock's quiet refusal to make any promises.

Although he had expected his weekly phone call home to make him late to work, the news about his father's heart attack—mild though it was—extended his normal conversation with his mother considerably. Suddenly his father's gift of the family _ka'athyra_ makes sense.

For weeks Sarek must have known something was wrong.

On a sudden impulse, Spock opens his cooler and peers inside. He still has some fresh _plomeek_. He pulls it out and starts preparing soup.

Washing and cutting the thick stems takes him back to his childhood—the many afternoons he and his mother puttered around in the kitchen preparing the evening meal. _Plomeek_ soup is not easy to make—but Spock has heard it called _Vulcan comfort food_ , a description he finds quite apt.

Making it helps him feel less…lonely. Or homesick.

Lately he has made it quite often.

It is almost noon before he finishes, and though it is not in his nature to leave anything untidy, he hurries out the door with dishes still in the sink and discarded _plomeek_ leaves littering the counter top.

At the language building he takes the stairs two at a time to the third floor, walking quickly down the hall and unpacking the thermos and bowls before the lab hours end.

In the distance he hears the lab door open and Nyota's boots clicking on the tile.

"Commander!" she says as she enters the break room.

"Cadet Uhura," he says, placing the thermos on the table and motioning for her to sit. "If you are interested, I brought a Vulcan dish for you to try. If you still have some of your mother's fruit—"

Yesterday she had startled him when she tried to hand him a piece of pineapple—her hand touching the food, holding it out to him. He could see her frown when he had refused her offer—and today he is determined to show more grace if she offers again.

"Yes, of course," Nyota says, stepping lightly to the cooler and taking out her bagged lunch. She opens the container with more gingered pineapple and sets it on the table between them.

When she sees the bowls on the table, she sounds curious…a good sign—and one of the characteristics he finds most appealing about her.

"What is this?" she asks, and he says, "My mother's recipe for _plomeek_ soup."

As he pours the soup, he pictures his mother and replays some of the conversation from this morning. His negligence in returning her mail had hurt her—he will be more attentive in the future.

"It's good," Nyota says, tasting the soup and meeting Spock's gaze. Perhaps he should be more attentive to her, too.

"May I?''

He spears a small piece of pineapple with a fork and takes a bite.

"It's hot," she warns. "The ginger is pretty spicy."

It is, in fact, rather bland—particularly compared to some Vulcan peppers.

"Very agreeable," Spock says, trying to sound sincere. Nyota rewards him with a laugh that exposes her teeth in a most pleasing fashion.

"I'm sorry," she says, smiling, "but your face—you don't look like you are enjoying it. Don't worry. It won't hurt my feelings if you don't like it."

 _How can she tell?_ For a moment Spock is nonplussed. Hasn't he lived among humans long enough to be able to sidestep the truth almost as well as they do? Her ability to read him is uncanny—and unnerving. What else does she know?

"I would tell you," Spock says, his brows knit together, "if I did not like it. Why would your feelings be affected by my response?"

It isn't a lie, exactly. He _might_ tell her, someday.

Without wanting to, he remembers himself in his mother's kitchen— _this soup isn't as flavorful as it usually is._

"How would you feel," she says, "if I said I didn't like your mother's plomick soup?"

"The word you mean is _plomeek_ ," Spock says, "and your appreciation of it is based on your taste receptors, your past experiences with similar cuisines, your willingness to try something unfamiliar—why would my…. _feelings_ …be affected in any way?"

Again he feels deceitful—and vaguely uneasy that she might know that he is being deceitful.

"I see," Nyota says. "It must be a _human_ reaction."

She takes another sip of soup and then says, "I thought you didn't eat lunch."

Outside a storm is rushing past, shaking the window like a frenetic, invisible prankster. Nyota looks up from her soup and he knows she is waiting for him to speak.

What can he say? That working with her closely for the past three weeks has been a misery—and a pleasure so intense that he no longer recognizes himself?

That the quickness of her mind and the depth of her intuition delight him—that the warmth in her gaze causes him distress?

That he dreams about her, waking and sleeping—and tries to erase her from his ruminations with meditation, with exercise, with the distractions of work.

That since he has known her, he has felt a growing dissatisfaction with his relationship with T'Pring—and _that_ , more than anything else, causes him despair.

He can never tell her any of this.

But he can enjoy a meal with her, at least.

"A mistake on my part," he says, and they finish their soup in silence.

 


	5. Bonds

**Chapter Five: Bonds**

**Disclaimer: I play here for free. Come play with me.**

Nyota never takes the lift—never. _Stairs are my friends_ , she often intones as she huffs up multiple fights. More than once she has scoffed—loudly, noticeably—when her friends part ways for the elevator, leaving her to climb the stairs on her own.

On those occasions she likes to run, racing the elevator and usually beating it—delighting in the look of surprise on her friends' faces when the door opens, revealing her standing there, bent over slightly, catching her breath.

"You're crazy," Gaila tells her repeatedly.

"I'm going to be a Starfleet officer," she retorts.

Her commitment to moving under her own steam is a point of pride—and so despite having a bandaged, twisted ankle, she limps to the bottom of the language building stairwell and takes a tentative step.

Immediately she is in trouble.

"Dammit!" she says, gingerly moving back off the stairs.

She's not only angry, she's embarrassed. After railing so long against giving into the convenience of the lift, now she will have to capitulate.

No matter that she is injured—a stupid mistake during a late night game of parrises squares at the rec center. If Jim Kirk weren't such a winner-take-all player…but it isn't fair to blame him. She's just as competitive.

She _ought_ to be able to overcome this injury—but she tries and fails to stand squarely on the lowest step. With a sigh, she limps slowly toward the elevator down the hall.

The trip to the third floor is swift and silent, and when the door opens she eases out carefully. _So far so good._ If she takes her time, the pain is minimal—a mild throbbing that she is able to ignore.

As soon as the lift doors close behind her, she hears a gentle murmuring sound. Coming from Spock's office, it has a peculiar quality—and for a moment she stands and considers what it is.

In a flash she understands—Spock is speaking in Vulcan, probably on the subspace transceiver.

She starts to move towards his office but then pauses. If this is a private conversation, wouldn't he have shut his door? Other people are already in the building—indeed, Professor Artura's door is also open and his lights on further down the hall. She's not really eavesdropping.

But she stands immobile, listening to the rhythmic, distinctive, slightly nasal vowels, slightly sibilant Vulcan consonants, focusing on the sounds and trying to ignore their meaning.

An impossible task, of course.

In short order she realizes that he is speaking to his father—and though she cannot hear the other side of the conversation, she can hear an odd note of tension in Spock's voice. Bad news, or an argument?

Not an argument. She's heard Spock when he is annoyed—his tone sharp, his words abrupt, usually directed at an errant cadet who has had the temerity to come to class unprepared.

Some bad news then. He sounds worried.

"I told Mother I would call," Spock says. "If this time is inconvenient, specify another."

Or perhaps she was mistaken. He doesn't sound especially worried. In fact, his voice is flat and matter-of-fact.

"When will the healers decide if surgery is necessary?"

Did she hear that right? _Sharushsu_ —surgery?

Vaguely she feels a tendril of unease—even though his door is open, this is beginning to sound like a private conversation after all. She looks around and considers making her way to the break room to wait for him to finish.

Knowing how keen his hearing is, she hesitates. If she moves she will give herself away. Would he be embarrassed to know that he is overheard?

"In the medical center in Shi'Kahr? The heart facilities in Kir have logged more hours in valve replacements. It would be logical to go there instead. I understand. Naturally it is your decision."

Holding her breath, Nyota pivots and starts toward the break room. Now he does sound annoyed—and something else, too. Sad? She can't tell.

Even as she scolds herself for listening, she strains to make out Spock's words.

"No, I have not heard from her since my last trip home…..I _have_ tried…..Yesterday…..Her family says she is….unable to communicate at this time….Negative.….I do not…sense her."

Reaching the break room door, Nyota braces herself on the doorframe to shift her backpack. As she turns in, she hears Spock saying, "For quite some time, Father. It is a disappointment to me, too."

Hobbling to the nearest table, Nyota lets her backpack slip from her shoulders. She can hear Spock's voice—indistinct now—and she lets out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

_I have not heard from her since my last trip home._

What is that about? And more confusing, his comment about not _sensing_ her—Nyota thinks back to what she knows about Vulcans—what she learned in her first xenosociology course.

They are telepaths—though she seems to remember that they have to be in physical contact to communicate. But Spock said he was disappointed about not being able to sense someone he hasn't seen for some time. A woman? He said _she_.

Can he read minds without touching the person? Can he, for instance, tell what she is thinking—or feeling—when they sit in the break room and share a cup of tea, something they have done twice now since the new break rules were put into place?

The thought makes her shiver.

She has a sudden memory of reaching for his hand when he cut it picking up glass. After the earthquake—he had pulled away so quickly.

Now she realizes why. She shivers again.

Walking slowly to the sink, she decides to make tea. Professor Artura might like a cup, and his TA.

And Commander Spock, of course.

When she turns off the tap, she listens in the sudden silence for his voice. Hearing nothing, she plugs in the kettle and opens the cabinet to retrieve several mugs.

"If you are making tea," Spock says from behind her, "you might like to try this."

She swings around and sees him standing with his hand outstretched, holding an ornate box.

"What is it?" she asks, and Spock lifts the top of the box and tips it so she can see inside. "Vulcan tea?"

"From Kenya," he says, and Nyota's face lights up.

Without thinking, she dips her nose close to the box in Spock's hand and takes a deep breath.

"That makes me homesick," she says, looking up at him.

Tilting his head, he says, "That was not my intention."

His voice is so serious that she laughs.

"Here, I'll make us some."

She starts to reach for the box but stops herself. Turning her right hand up, she waits for him to set the box of tea on her palm.

For a moment they make eye contact, and then Nyota looks away.

Stumbling back slightly, she rights herself awkwardly as she scoops out the loose tea into a mesh strainer.

"You are hurt."

Does he sound alarmed? She looks over her shoulder—he is watching her closely, his face impassive as always.

"My own fault," she says, lowering the mesh strainer into the kettle and turning off the heat. "I got a little too…enthusiastic….during a game of parrises squares. My team was behind by a single point and I tried to take the other team's best player down."

Pouring the tea into mugs, she smiles ruefully.

"I got taken out instead."

She picks up one of the mugs and hands it to Spock, handle out. How could she have forgotten the impropriety of touching a telepath? Her face feels hot with embarrassment as he takes the mug from her.

"Your teammates did not give you the necessary support to prevent an injury?"

 _Is he angry?_ He sounds like it.

"Oh, no," she says hurriedly. "My injury was my own fault. My timing was off when I tried to duck and roll—so much for all those years of ballet lessons. Who knew I should have been taking judo instead. Or maybe karate."

"If you wish, I could observe a game and make suggestions for improvement. I am somewhat familiar with Terran martial arts and the rules for parrises squares."

Nyota laughs again, a sudden ludicrous image of Spock sparring with Jim Kirk flashing in her imagination.

"No, thanks," she says, testing her weight on her ankle and taking a step back. "I think this is a message that I need to look for a different hobby."

"Chess, perhaps?" Spock says.

"You must be joking," Nyota says, picking up her own mug and limping to the nearby table and sitting down. "Parrises squares is fun. It's athletic—"

She gives a wry look and lifts her ankle for a moment.

"And very competitive. Chess is….boring."

"Indeed."

"And slow! Parrises squares has action. Try to find that in a chess game."

"Do you play?"

Spock's tone of voice catches her by surprise. He is amused by something—and without consciously intending to, she thinks of the conversation she overheard a few minutes ago. With his father he had sounded stressed, or upset. She feels glad that his mood is brightening.

"Yes, Commander, I know how to play."

"I did not ask you if you knew how. I asked if you do."

"What?" she says, confused. "Play regularly?"

Sipping his tea, Spock waits a moment to answer.

"You might find the game more strenuous and competitive than you imagine."

Nyota snorts and shakes her head.

"And," Spock adds, "it rarely leads to sprained ankles."

"You're going to tell me that you love the game," Nyota says, grinning. The tea has put her in a good mood—reminding her, as tea does anyway, of her mother. She needs to call her tonight—or tomorrow at the latest. Since she took this TA job she has had less time to call home for long chats.

"I find the game stimulating," Spock says. "If you like, I would be happy to set up a board during your next break."

"I'll pass," Nyota says, standing and testing her ankle. "I need to open the lab."

She takes a step toward the door before turning back to where Spock is still sitting at the table, implacable as always.

"Thank you for the tea. What a coincidence that you would have the same kind I grew up with."

She grabs her backpack from the floor and heads out the door. From behind her she hears Spock say, "Not at all."

X X X X X X X

"Please," Commander Tarshi said, waving towards the chair in front of his desk.

Spock looked down briefly before sitting. Commander Tarshi leaned forward slightly, his pale yellow skin almost luminescent in the morning light, his long, bulbous fingers tapping the desktop in a rhythmic tattoo.

For a moment the Commander said nothing, and Spock felt the first flicker of impatience. As a humanoid native of the planet Khor'ril, Commander Tarshi was tasked with regular support meetings with all non-human cadets their first year at the Academy, and although Spock agreed with the concept _in principle_ , in reality, his meetings with the Commander were less than helpful.

Right now, for instance. Spock would rather spend his time meeting with his academic adviser to schedule time on the subspace relay monitor so he could gather sufficient data for his astrophysics project.

He didn't need any _hand-holding_ from a xenopsychology counselor.

"Your progress reports were forwarded to me this afternoon," the Commander said. Spock sat immobile, waiting for the usual discussion. His grades, he knew, were exemplary—as they had been since he first arrived at the Academy three months earlier. Every two weeks Commander Tarshi had called him in to go over the newest results—always praising him highly and then asking how he was adjusting.

The question always struck Spock as _silly_. And unnecessary. And overly familiar.

Spock let his gaze wander briefly to the image outside the window behind the Commander's desk. Dark clouds were scudding across the sky—heralds of an imminent rainstorm—still something of a rarity to a young man from a desert planet. Spock never tired of watching the changing weather—and trying to predict the temperature range and precipitation probability from his informal observations.

"I was concerned," Commander Tarshi said, his face flushing a deeper yellow, "when I saw this note from Professor Hill."

The Commander's words took Spock completely by surprise. _Concern_? What could his tactical training professor indicate in a note that would cause concern?

Commander Tarshi shifted in his chair and blinked several times, a telltale Khor'rillian nervous tic.

"Professor Hill says that you are in danger of failing the course," Commander Tarshi said.

"Unlikely," Spock said automatically. "There must be some mistake."

"That's what I thought, too," Commander Tarshi said. "So I called him. It's no mistake."

Instantly Spock's face was hot—he knew he looked flustered and flushed, but he was unable to control his reaction. Commander Tarshi's eyes were narrowed, his hands folded in front of him.

Finally Spock caught his breath enough to say, "Please explain."

"The team assessment," Commander Tarshi began. "Apparently you have…difficulty...working in the group."

 _So that was what this was about_. Taking a deep breath, Spock said, "I was assigned to a team that has been unable to complete any of our required tasks. I have been forced to complete our assignments on my own."

In the silence that followed, Spock ran through the team scenario again in his mind. Was it possible he had missed something? Not likely. The teams were assigned randomly—an illogical choice on the professor's part—and given a different task to be completed each two weeks.

The other members of Spock's team—two men and a woman—were not openly hostile or unwilling to work with him, but they were also resistant to most of his suggestions.

 _Divide up the tasks so that individuals could play to their strengths?_ This seemed like a reasonable strategy to Spock when the group was told to design a campsite that would withstand hurricane-strength winds as well as provide protection from arctic cold.

But the group had vetoed his plan, arguing that the design had to be consensual—that everyone had to agree on the basics. Such a stricture guaranteed inefficiency—and indeed, the group soon deadlocked.

Rather than continue to meet with the group, Spock had used his time to draft a prototype of a campsite that met all of the parameters—and when the deadline for submission approached, he turned it in for the group.

The same dynamics had happened a second time—and then a third—until for the last project, Spock had not even met with the other cadets and had petitioned the professor to accept his individual work without the charade of being a member of the team.

Not that Spock objected to anyone in the group. Nor did he blame any one person for the failure of the group to, as humans said, _gel_.

"Teamwork is essential in many tactical situations," Commander Tarshi said as Spock sat back and waited. "Don't you agree?"

The temptation was to react quickly— _of course_ _he agreed_. The question was insulting.

Except that Khor'rillians were noted diplomats, unusually polite and empathetic. Commander Tarshi was asking a _rhetorical_ question, one without serious weight or meaning. Spock took a breath and held it for a moment. He had to regain some measure of control.

"In theory, teamwork is important," he said at last. "But my team was assigned without regard to preference, ability, personality—"

To his surprise, Spock heard Commander Tarshi interrupt him.

"Are you suggesting," the Commander said, his face flushing dark yellow again, "that you are able to function only on teams which meet your own personal criteria? What do you imagine a captain would say if you were to object to being included in an away team because the members were not to your liking?"

To his horror, Spock felt a wave of anger—and before he could stop himself, he said, "Each member of an away team would be chosen for a particular expertise. My….feelings….about them would be irrelevant."

"And yet your feelings about your current team are sabotaging their success. You can't always choose whom you work with—or the situation in which you find yourself a member of a team. If you are unwilling—" and here Commander Tarshi paused and gave a piercing look at Spock,"—or unable to adapt, then Starfleet may not be the place for you."

The words of the normally sedate Commander crashed in Spock's ears. He was mortified— _may not be the place for you_. Of all the things he might have expected Commander Tarshi to say, he could not imagine hearing aloud the words that had hounded him all his life.

 _May not be the place for you_.

_Neither human nor Vulcan, you have no place in this universe._

As suddenly as he had become stern, Commander Tarshi's countenance softened and his voice took on a different tone.

"Spock," he said, "in every other way, your performance meets or exceeds the expectations of your professors. But learning to work with others—that's key to genuine success in Starfleet. It's not just an organization of talented individuals—although it is that. It is a group of people committed to a mission and to an ideal—an ideal too large for any one person to achieve alone."

What did Commander Tarshi want him to say? Of course he understood what Starfleet stood for, how the individuals involved would rely on each other, defend each other, stand for the same commitment.

And he understood the importance of working with others.

In theory.

If he hadn't had much practice before arriving at the Academy, it wasn't his fault.

When most of the other Vulcan boys divided into teams for strategic games during the one free block of the school day, Spock hung back, reading or studying, or more frequently as he got older, requesting tutorials from the ancient chess grandmaster who also taught computational complexity theory, the class which offered Spock both the most challenge and the greatest pleasure.

The teacher, Truvik, was a tiny, wizened Vulcan with thinning white hair and a posture so stooped that he resorted to a cane when he walked. When Spock asked his father, Sarek said that Truvik had looked no different 60 years earlier when Sarek himself had been a student there.

"The board is already set up," Truvik would say when Spock came to his office during the free block.

And Spock would settle on one of the backless stools, one hand on his chin, his other hand cupped around his elbow.

Sometimes for the entire hour he sat like that, unmoving, running the different chess moves through his mind. If Truvik objected, he never said anything.

But more often Truvik did speak—sometimes to caution Spock against an intemperate move—sometimes to offer specific advice about his strategy.

"Your rook is in danger," Truvik said. "Don't forget to look to the lowest level—that is a mistake many players make, forgetting the pieces left behind. They are your rearguard—and without them you will fail."

By the time he graduated, Spock had won dozens of chess tournaments, attaining the rank of interstellar grandmaster.

So far his only extracurricular activity was attending one meeting of the Academy chess club—a disappointment, to be sure. None of the cadets were even candidate masters, much less grandmasters. That single meeting had been his last.

He resisted the urge to sigh as he looked at Commander Tarshi. The Khor'rillian Commander folded his long fingers together and sat back.

"I am…uncertain how to proceed," Spock said, hesitating a beat. "I…acknowledge…my failure in this regard—"

"Then I have a suggestion," Commander Tarshi said, and Spock had the impression that the conversation had at last come around to where the commander had been maneuvering it since the beginning. "Professor Hill has arranged some recreational time for your group—so you can get to know them without the pressure of a grade."

Spock opened his mouth to protest. He _did_ know them. Cadet Yarin was an astrophysics major. Cadet Edo was studying communications. Cadet Simpson was on the command track.

Spending time _recreationally_ was unnecessary.

But something in Commander Tarshi's look gave him pause. He fell silent, and the Commander continued.

"Tonight at 1900, report to the rec center. You and your team are scheduled to play against another group in the tactical training class. Apparently your group isn't the only one needing….remediation."

Spock was momentarily nonplussed. Play? At the rec center? The only sport designed for groups that large was parrises squares, a new game that adolescent humans had adopted and adapted from colonists on Omicron Theta. Surely his time was better spent doing something other than playing a game.

"Dismissed," Commander Tarshi said, jolting Spock from his reverie. "And good luck."

The Commander's comment about luck was a _joke_ —Spock recognized it as such. In the past he had twice told the Commander that the belief that stating a desire for a positive outcome was a way of bringing it about was not logical—

The rec center was crowded—a surprise to Spock who had never been inside in the evening. Many of the cadets there were obviously preparing to engage in various sporting activities—their clothes indicated as much. Some carried sporting equipment—tennis rackets, weights, and even a unicycle—though just as many appeared to milling about purposelessly, talking to each other, lounging on the sofas, reading PADDs.

It was almost overwhelming.

The room where parrises squares was played was in the back of the rec center, a large one that could accommodate at least one ramp. Just inside the door was a cabinet with the required padded uniforms and helmets. On one wall was a recessed area where the ion mallets were plugged in and recharged.

Spock took it all in as he entered, his gaze sweeping the room and coming to rest on Cadet Yarin standing near the uniform cabinet.

"I win," she said, and Spock tilted his head.

"The game has not begun."

Cadet Yarin tucked her short black bob behind her ears and said, "I was the only one who bet you would show up. So I win."

She said it without looking at him, almost as if she were angry. _It was very confusing._

The cadet opened the cabinet and pulled out a padded vest, holding it up to measure.

"Here," she said, handing it to Spock. "This looks like it will fit you."

Carefully avoiding Cadet Yarin's fingertips, Spock took the heavy vest from her and slipped his arms through the laces. As she pulled another vest from the cabinet, the door opened again and the other two members of his team walked in.

Cadet Edo was the shortest of the four—with the characteristic features of someone of Asian descent. Cadet Simpson was tall and gangly, with an easy grin that belied what Spock identified as a stubborn streak.

"Look who's here," Cadet Yarin said, angling her head towards Spock. Again her tone sounded angry, though Spock could not determine the reason why.

Nor could he determine why she felt it necessary to announce his presence. The other cadets could see that he was, indeed, here.

Before he could ask her to explain, the door opened again and the four members of the other team came in together. Recognizing them from the class, Spock nodded when he met their gaze—and one cadet, a woman named Ngene, nodded back and smiled.

_Too bad she wasn't on his team. Then he would have at least one ally._

"Over here," Cadet Edo said from one corner of the room, calling the team members together for a pregame strategy session while the other team suited up. "Spock, you and I will take the high ground. You two—" he said, motioning to Yarin and Simpson, "move left of the ramp when we give you cover. Then we can set up the ambush from there."

A move to the left would leave Yarin and Simpson exposed longer than if they circled to the right. Spock started to speak, but clearly the others had played parrises squares before. He fell silent.

"Should we go long or short before we set up?" Simpson said. Edo took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I don't know. It depends on how many players they commit to taking the ramp."

"They'll probably send two," Yarin said, and again Spock started to speak. Since his team had drawn a five-second head start, the other team would expect them to take the high ground. Any player they sent to reconnoiter would be sacrificed early. Surely they would not send two players when one could draw the fire as well.

"I don't think so," Simpson said, and Spock sensed rather than saw Yarin react. So—she disagreed. Here it came again—the deadlock that had stymied this group all semester.

Rounding on Spock, Yarin said, "You've been pretty quiet. What do you think?"

For a moment he hesitated. All three team members were looking at him, and in the other corner of the room, he could hear their opponents checking their ion mallets and preparing for the countdown to begin.

The game was really no different from three-dimensional chess, except that instead of a single mind moving the pieces around, he was one of those pieces—suspended on a plane and only occasionally aware of the positions of all the other pieces. Still-

"I agree that a single attacker is more likely."

He watched Cadet Yarin's face contort slightly—and then smooth out.

"Okay, since you both agree, let's go with that plan. We'll be ready to trip the second guy after you hammer the first one."

The game itself, Spock thought later, was somewhat anti-climactic. The opposing team sent two, not one, player—just as Yarin had surmised—but Spock's team was able to regroup quickly despite being out-maneuvered. Twice Spock heard the opponents moving in their direction and responded before his team was in danger—and twice he found a member of his team beside him, wielding a mallet against some hapless opponent.

By the end of the first match, the three humans were struggling for air—and Spock waited patiently for them to rehydrate and catch their breath before they plotted their moves for the second match.

The lost both in the end, but not from poor strategy or lack of teamwork.

"Sorry, guys," Cadet Edo said later as they removed their padded vests and unhooked their helmets, hanging them in the storage cabinet. "I should have taken ballet, I guess. If I hadn't lost my footing as I dismounted the ramp—"

"You couldn't help it," Yarin added, and Simpson slapped Edo on the shoulder.

Spock watched this exchange carefully. Certainly Edo had some regret for his poor performance—but he had been knocked off the ramp by an unexpected blow. No one—not even Spock—had seen or heard the blow coming.

"Regret is a waste of time and energy," Spock said. Cadet Edo looked up quickly, and Spock had the distinct impression that he was pleased. Looking around, Spock noticed that Simpson and Yarin were also watching him.

"After all," Spock said, "your fall was simply a matter of….bad luck."

X X X X X X

The subspace transceiver in his apartment has been glitchy for weeks, but Spock hasn't taken the time to give it a close inspection until it finally fails for good. Prying the back off the unit, he gives a cursory look and sees the trouble. Two leads have melted away from the conductor. Fixing them will not be hard—a simple soldering job—but it will take more time than he has before heading to his office.

If he doesn't call today, his mother will be upset. With a repressed sigh, Spock snaps the panel back onto the transceiver and gathers up his things. The unit at the office will have to do.

Although Spock is often the first to arrive at the language building each morning, today Professor Artura is already there, nodding at Spock as they pass each other in the hallway.

The Andorian professor is a proficient linguist and an able teacher, but Spock feels uneasy when he is around him. More often than not, Dr. Artura baffles Spock with incomprehensible _jokes_ —references to popular culture, or puns, or pointed comments about Spock himself, presumably meant in a humorous way.

Yesterday Professor Artura had been in the hall when Spock left from the lab.

"The temperature controls must be malfunctioning," Professor Artura said. "You look, as the humans say, all hot and bothered."

Spock had flushed then—was the Andorian deliberately baiting him? Was it possible that Spock's…distress….was that apparent?

_Nyota's hair, falling over her shoulders—standing behind her, imagining reaching out to touch her—making a quick excuse to leave the lab..._

Seeing Professor Artura in the hall this morning is a surprise, and Spock strides purposefully into his office and flips on the subspace transceiver. Only after he is settled in his chair does he realize that his office door is open. No matter. He can hear the professor moving around in his office down the hall.

The connection to Vulcan takes several minutes to establish, including one short conversation with a relay operator on Starbase Four. Suddenly his father's image wavers into sight.

Is his father thinner than usual? Is he pale? Spock can't decide.

"Spock," his father says evenly. Spock tamps his own worry and tries to emulate his father's tone of voice.

"I told Mother I would call," Spock says. "If this time is inconvenient, specify another."

"This is convenient," Sarek says. "I have postponed my trip into town so that I can confer with the healers this afternoon."

"When will the healers decide if surgery is necessary?"

"That decision is close to being made. The medications have not been as efficacious as we had hoped. When we meet, we will consider scheduling the surgery soon."

This is a surprise. Traditionally conservative in their approach, the healers put great faith in the ability for a body to heal itself before resorting to surgery.

"In the medical center in Shi'Kahr? The heart facilities in Kir have logged more hours in valve replacements. It would be logical to go there instead."

Even over subspace, Spock can see the glimmer of annoyance in his father's expression. Sarek has taken offense at Spock's comment about logic—but it had to be said.

"I am quite comfortable with the healers here," Sarek says, his voice once more controlled. Spock feels a flash of quiet anger at his father's stubbornness—and he tries, as he often must when he speaks to Sarek—to hide his emotional reaction.

"I understand. Naturally it is your decision."

From the hallway he hears the soft scrape of a footfall. Professor Artura getting tea in the break room?

"Your mother and I," Sarek says, "saw K'Loh'r T'Mir Suvak and his wife in town three days ago. They did not speak of T'Pring. Have you spoken to her recently?"

"No, I have not heard from her since my last trip home."

Another noise in the hall—someone _is_ there.

"It might be wise to call her. You should stay in better contact."

All at once Spock is impatient to end the conversation. His father has touched upon the very subject he wants to avoid—his disappointment with his relationship with T'Pring.

As a child he had felt only relief when he and T'Pring formalized their _koon'ul._ That was a duty discharged, one thing less to worry about.

Only later, as he saw what other bonded couples could do—could _mean_ —to each other, did he begin to chafe at the decision made for him so long ago.

"I _have_ tried," Spock says. "Yesterday. Her family says she is….unable to communicate at this time."

"And through your bond? Can you communicate with her directly?"

Such a feeling of failure rushes over Spock that for a moment he cannot speak.

"Negative," he says, unable to meet his father's gaze. "I do not…sense her."

A muffled thump in the hall, and then silence. Nyota? Professor Artura's footsteps are quite different in character—

"How long has this been the case?" Sarek says. "This is disappointing news."

Spock considers what to tell him.

"For quite some time, Father. It is a disappointment to me, too."

He's ready to end this—and to see what Nyota may have overheard. But his father isn't finished.

"I will contact you when I know the details of the surgery, if that is, indeed, what we decide today."

His voice is as steady as if he were discussing the weather. Spock feels the familiar wave of envy for his father's control.

"Thank you, Father," Spock says, and the subspace transmission goes dark.

Sitting quietly, he hears the faucet in the kitchen. Nyota is heating water—probably for tea. Although she seems to enjoy other hot beverages, she prefers tea.

That is why he has gone to the trouble of finding a vendor who sells tea from the mountains near her home. Last weekend he had taken an Academy flitter to Sausalito—a luxury he doesn't usually accord himself, but he had been pressed for time and had not wanted to wait on public transport—to order a small package of handpicked organic smoked tea from Kenya. The price was exorbitant, but Spock had not quibbled with the owner of the shop. In fact, he had paid extra to have it delivered to his home address—and it had arrived in this morning's mail delivery.

Picking up the box of tea from the table, he heads to the break room. There she is—standing at the sink with her back to the door—the morning sunlight streaming into the windows and making the break room glow.

"If you are making tea," Spock says from behind her, "you might like to try this."

When she turns around, he holds out the ornate box.

"What is it?" she asks, and Spock lifts the top of the box and tips it so she can see inside. "Vulcan tea?"

"From Kenya," he says, and Nyota's face lights up.

To his surprise, she dips down suddenly, putting her nose close to the box in Spock's hand and inhaling deeply.

"That makes me homesick," she says, looking up at him.

At once he is abashed. The tea was supposed to bring her comfort, not cause her distress.

"That was not my intention."

She laughs, but Spock has heard his mother laugh this way often when she is trying to hide her feelings. Or to misdirect his attention away from something he has done which has hurt her.

The gift of tea is a mistake. Before he can close the box, however, Nyota says, "Here, I'll make us some."

He watches as she reaches for the box but stops. Instead, she turns up her hand, pointedly not touching him.

He doesn't blame her. They seem unable to communicate—and with a bitterness that surprises him, he recalls his conversation with T'Pring's housekeeper yesterday.

" _My mistress is unavailable," the old retainer had said, not quite apologetically._

_It was the same thing he was told every time he called in the past five months—and Spock was instantly angry._

_Without bothering to hide it, he said, "And when will she be available?"_

" _Some other time."_

For a moment he looks at Nyota—and she looks away.

Stumbling back slightly, she rights herself awkwardly as she scoops out the loose tea into a mesh strainer. With a flash of insight, he knows why she was walking so slowly in the hallway earlier. _How long had she been there? What had she heard?_

"You are hurt."

"My own fault," she says, lowering the mesh strainer into the kettle and turning off the heat. "I got a little too…enthusiastic….during a game of parrises squares. My team was behind by a single point and I tried to take the other team's best player down."

Pouring the tea into mugs, she smiles ruefully.

"I got taken out instead."

She picks up one of the mugs and hands it to Spock, handle out. Her distaste is not lost on him. Better not to dwell on it. This….relationship…is already too…confusing.

"Your teammates did not give you the necessary support to prevent an injury?"

He has a sudden image of her tumbling off a parrises squares ramp—his breath hitches.

"Oh, no," she says hurriedly. "My injury was my own fault. My timing was off when I tried to duck and roll—so much for all those years of ballet lessons. Who knew I should have been taking judo instead. Or maybe karate."

"If you wish, I could observe a game and make suggestions for improvement. I am somewhat familiar with Terran martial arts and the rules for parrises squares."

Nyota gives another awkward-sounding laugh.

"No, thanks," she says, testing her weight on her ankle and taking a step back.

His heart sinks with sudden disappointment. He isn't surprised that she turns him down—and at some level he is relieved.

A little.

It will be easier if he keeps his life uncomplicated.

"I think this is a message that I need to look for a different hobby."

"Chess, perhaps?" Spock says, keeping his voice as even as he can.

"You must be joking," Nyota says, picking up her own mug and limping to the nearby table and sitting down. "Parrises squares is fun. It's athletic—"

Lifting her injured ankle, she gives another humorless smile.

"And very competitive. Chess is….boring."

"Indeed."

"And slow! Parrises squares has action. Try to find that in a chess game."

Finally—she says something that he can focus on—something less…painful.

"Do you play?"

"Yes, Commander, I know how to play."

"I did not ask you if you knew how. I asked if you do."

"What?" she says. "Play regularly?"

Sipping his tea, Spock considers whether or not he should try to persuade her further.

"You might find the game more strenuous and competitive than you imagine."

Nyota makes a noise that indicates disbelief.

"And," Spock adds, "it rarely leads to sprained ankles."

"You're going to tell me that you love the game," Nyota says, giving yet another odd smile. In his experience, when humans smile this way, they are communicating mild disgust, or annoyance, or a forewarning that they are planning to retreat.

The thought that she is feeling any of these things causes him distress.

Would it be wrong to offer a friendly overture—as a way of smoothing over the awkwardness of the moment? To make a connection that might _cheer_ her?

"I find the game stimulating," Spock says. "If you like, I would be happy to set up a board during your next break."

"I'll pass," Nyota says, and Spock feels a stab of regret. "I need to open the lab."

When she gets up to leave, an odd weight keeps him nailed to his chair. What a curious feeling—as though his energy is suddenly gone, his interest in doing more than sitting drained away.

"Thank you for the tea," she says before she gets to the door. "What a coincidence that you would have the same kind I grew up with."

She grabs her backpack from the floor and heads out the door.

When he is certain that she cannot hear him, he says, "Not at all."

 


	6. Katra

**Chapter Six: Katra**

**Disclaimer: Manipulator, yes. Owner, no.**

Leonard McCoy's lecture is swift and loud— _damn fool thing to run around like a crazy adolescent_ —but Nyota doesn't mind. Part of her agrees with him—parrises squares may be a thing of the past for her. She's just glad that the treatment for her twisted ankle is quick and relatively painless.

"Go easy for awhile," McCoy says, holding his hand under her elbow as she slips off the medical table and heads out of the infirmary. "Or I'll have more to say to you—and I can be even louder. And next time you hurt something," he says, glaring at her, "don't walk around for two days in pain thinking you know how to practice medicine."

With McCoy's scolding still in mind, she enters the language building and hesitates at the stairwell. _The stairs or the lift?_

Taking a tentative step on the stairs, she sighs. _She doesn't have time for this._ Shifting her backpack, she takes a breath and heads up the first flight as fast as she can.

At the second floor landing she pauses for a moment, reshifts her backpack, and heads up the next flight of stairs. As soon as she reaches the third floor, she notices that Spock's office light is on—naturally. He is almost always there before she arrives.

Peering around the doorjamb, she sees him at his desk, looking up at her.

"Do you still have any of that Kenyan tea?" she asks.

"It is yours," he says, pointing to the shelf where the box sits. The tea is a genuine pleasure, and she smiles in anticipation of a cup.

As she reaches for the canister, her attention is drawn to a new picture cube on the shelf.

"I haven't seen this before," she says.

"A replacement for the one that broke."

"May I?" she says, darting a quick look in his direction.

"Of course," Spock says.

Something in his tone of voice is different today—happier? More upbeat? Perhaps the newness of working together is starting to wear off—or perhaps she has been imagining the awkwardness all along, worrying about something that is her own private perception and nothing more.

She gently lifts the cube with her left hand, shifting it slightly to see the images on all sides.

Most of the pictures are of buildings rather than people—an odd choice to feature on a public cube. _Or maybe typical for Vulcans_. She isn't sure.

One building appears twice from different angles, a clay-colored construction with rounded sides and deep windows, clearly a desert dwelling.

"This is your home?"

"My parents' home," he says. Something in his tone makes her look up in time to see an expression flicker across his features. Sorrow? Nostalgia?

She has a sudden intense desire to know.

"But," Nyota says, moving toward the desk where he still sits, his hands folded in his lap, "you grew up there. In this house?"

Watching him closely for a reaction—any reaction—she realizes that she is leaning forward, one palm on the desk. She lifts her hand and straightens back up.

Apparently Spock has noticed her curiosity—though he doesn't seem upset. In fact, there's a ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

This is what has been missing since she agreed to be his aide—the easy camaraderie she had felt from time to time in class discussions that often continued long after the other students plied out of the lecture hall.

"Yes, Cadet Uhura," he says, "that was my house when I lived with my parents."

"And this was your garden?"

"Not that same one, but one like it. All of the plants are annuals."

Now it is her turn to refrain from smiling. His literal interpretation is surely his idea of a _joke_.

"And this is your little sister?"

The image is of a pretty Vulcan child, looking pensive and large-eyed at the camera.

"The daughter of my father's cousin. I have no sisters."

"Another cousin?" Nyota says, tipping the cube toward him. This picture is of an older girl—a young woman, really—with eyes so dark they look black.

To Nyota's surprise, Spock flushes and stutters.

"A…friend," he says.

Immediately she remembers the overheard conversation— _I do not sense her_ , Spock had said. Is this the _she_?

A stab of jealousy surprises her—and she replaces the cube on the shelf, hurries out of the office, and heads to the break room to make tea.

"Set it there," Spock says when she returns with his mug. She carefully puts it down before seating herself in the chair at his computer.

They slip easily into their routine—he working on his lesson plans, she sorting his mail. His mood is definitely different today—as if he is more comfortable in his skin.

Or more comfortable around her. Their distance this past month has frustrated her, surprised her. Until he started acting skittish around her, she hadn't realized how important their relationship is to her.

Or not _relationship_ —she smiles again as she works, struggling to define to herself what she means—but _friendship_ , or something that was on the way to being a friendship at one time.

Until she took this job—and he closed down.

Yes, _closed down_. That's exactly what has happened.

But today he's back, or almost back. A weight she didn't know she was carrying is suddenly lifted from her.

Most of the mail today is easy to sort, but Nyota flags an oddity and waits until Spock appears to be at a stopping point in his work before she questions him about it.

"What should I do with this note from Vulcan?" Nyota asks. "I don't have a file set up for personal mail."

"Open it," Spock says, surprising her and making her a bit uncomfortable. _His private mail_ —but she hears the scrape of his chair as he stands up and leans over her shoulder, reading the screen.

"What is it?" she says, looking up at him.

"A visit," he says, walking back to his desk. "Some friends from home."

Friends—people who _know_ him, _care_ about him. Her imagined image of Spock alone and lonely in some sterile gray apartment pops like a soap bubble. Vulcans? Friends from _home_.

"Oh, that's nice! When are they coming?"

"They are here," Spock says. "I expect to see them shortly."

It would be…as he might say… _fascinating_ to meet them. Spock is the only Vulcan she has ever met. She could practice her conversational skills…perhaps he will bring them to the campus.

"If you don't mind," Nyota says, turning off his computer, "I'm going to go out to get some lunch."

She stands and stretches, and as she does, she catches a glimpse of Spock. He's watching her, that same hint of amusement at the corner of his mouth. Remembering the _plomeek_ soup, she feels inspired.

"How about coming with me?"

She can tell he is about to turn her down—his brows furrow slightly, his lips part to speak.

"I know a good vegetarian place," she says before he can answer, feeling more playful today than she has in weeks. "You'll like it."

Pushing back his chair, Spock stands and takes a step toward her.

Feeling giddy and slightly triumphant, she stands up swiftly and immediately feels her ankle give way. Her breath catches and the ground rushes up.

And then all at once she is flooded from the top of her head to her toes with a wave of shimmery heat; she glances down at the prickly electric snap she feels on her arm and sees Spock's hand there, keeping her from falling. His other arm is around her waist, holding her up, her feet barely brushing the floor.

But most surprising is the crash of noise in her ears and the flash of images in her mind—pictures of her, in ways he must have seen her…sitting in the lab, working at the computer, handing him a cup of tea…

His thoughts, tumbling like images in a kaleidoscope. For a moment she is so dizzy that she is afraid she will fall if he moves his arm.

 _Don't let me go_ , she thinks, knowing without knowing how she knows that he hears the double meaning in her words.

This is unbearable—a terrible breach of her resolve not to admit even to herself what she's feeling.

"My ankle—" she says, her embarrassment forcing out an unnecessary explanation. She can hardly bear to look at him.

She pulls away, disentangling herself from his hold, giving a visible shake and a short, sharp laugh.

"I'm sorry!" she says, still unable to meet his gaze.

"Your ankle—" he begins, but she steps away from him, testing her weight on her foot.

"I—it gave way," she says, looking into his face at last.

They stand for a moment longer.

"I'm fine now," Nyota says, breaking the silence. "It was only a momentary weakness."

X X X X X X X X

The only person who ever called him _Spohkh-kam_ was T'Zela, T'Pring's grandmother. Not even Spock's own grandmother—and certainly not his father or mother—ever used the diminutive form of his name, with the affection and familiarity it implied.

From the first time he met her, Spock was unaccountably drawn to T'Zela. A flitter accident years earlier had killed her bondmate and left her in a coma for months. When she recovered sufficiently to move back home from the medical facilities, she had her house torn down and rebuilt to accommodate the motorized chair that allowed her some mobility.

Her family had encouraged her to look beyond Vulcan for a treatment that might restore her damaged nervous system, but she steadfastly refused.

"I accept what has happened. My life may seem circumscribed to you, but it is mine and it has much meaning for me. Please do not suggest that it does not."

Spock overheard T'Zela say this or something similar on more than one occasion. Later, after he left Vulcan and visited it often in his memory, he wondered if T'Zela's _mantra_ —her recognition of her outlier status and the uneasiness it evoked in others—was the reason she made a point of making him feel accepted.

They were, in that sense, kindred spirits.

"If you come with me to the stone patio, I can show you where the _va'khen_ has made her nest in the nearby trees," T'Zela said the first time he came with T'Pring for a visit. "She thinks she is being clever, waiting until dark before returning each day, but I can hear her. That is, if you are interested in the habits of the _va'khen_. T'Pring finds them…unstimulating."

Through their bond, Spock felt a burr of annoyance from T'Pring, and he was uncertain how he should respond. He knew little about predatory birds but was immediately captivated by the idea that T'Zela had outwitted one—and he was already formulating a list of questions to ask. _What was the va'khen doing during the daytime if she wasn't in her nest? What about her offspring—did they have to fend for themselves while their mother was away? What did they eat? How long did they live? What did one sound like?_

T'Pring's irritation was like a pebble in his shoe. Spock mirrored irritation back at her—thinking about the _va'kehn_ was pleasurable. Why should he have to stop?

Throughout their unspoken exchange, T'Zela sat slightly slumped in her motorized chair, watching the two children. With a start, she moved the fingers of her right hand—the one that she could control best—and set the chair rolling with the touch of a button.

"Follow or do not follow," she said. "I am going to the stone patio."

Hesitating a moment, Spock watched T'Zela navigate her chair along the paved walking path that circled her house. He hazarded a glance at T'Pring—she didn't _look_ annoyed. His decision made, he followed T'Zela and spent the rest of the afternoon at her knee, listening to her stories about the birds that flew so low over the patio that she could recognize individuals by their wing span alone.

That first visit was followed by many others. After their _koon-ul_ , Vulcan children spent varying amounts of time with their bondmates, depending on their families, their proximity, and even their own preferences.

Spock knew some children who were fast friends with their bondmates, though more typically, they were acquaintances only, becoming something more to each other gradually as they matured and drew nearer to the likely onset of _pon farr_.

His distance from T'Pring, then, was not unusual. They saw each other several times a year during his childhood, usually around holidays or other celebrations and always featuring a visit to T'Zela.

" _Spohkh-kam_ ," she would say, her body motionless in her chair, her eyes bright with undisguised merriment, "come tell me what you are learning in school these days. I need to learn something new today to feel alive."

And Spock would pull up a chair and lean close, intent on telling her everything about his life—or not _everything_. The physical bullying he didn't mention, nor the slights and slanders he endured from his classmates.

But T'Zela seemed to know.

"You are not happy at school," she said one day, and Spock had reacted so suddenly that from across the room T'Pring had snapped her head in his direction. Instantly his shields were up—he didn't want to share that part of his life with _her_ , either.

Not because she would be distressed on his behalf—although she might.

It was hard to know with T'Pring. Sometimes he thought he sensed her empathy, but just as often he felt that she judged him—that he was held up to some standard and found lacking.

"I am neither happy nor unhappy at school," he parried. T'Zela gave a slight frown.

"It is unworthy to lie to an elder," she said, and Spock flushed hard and felt his heart hammer in his side.

"I…I do not mean—"

"And yet some truths are ours alone," T'Zela said, her eyes bright. "Keeping them for ourselves—even from nosey elders—is not the same as a lie."

He looked up at her in disbelief. _Was she condoning a lie?_ Was she giving him permission to redefine the truth?

From behind him he heard T'Pring stir. He had not even been aware that she was still nearby.

That, he realized later, was when he began to feel her less and less.

Two days after his 16th birthday, Spock was surprised to receive an invitation from T'Zela to visit her for several days during a school hiatus. He had never stayed at her house overnight—she lived on the outskirts of Shi'Kahr, a short transit ride from his parents' house.

Yet her note was explicit. _Bring clothes and supplies for several days_. Spock was glad to go—T'Zela was always eager to hear what he was doing, and her own extensive reading, especially about scientific research, made her interesting company.

As soon as he rang the chime he was alarmed. Instead of the whir of T'Zela's motorized chair, he heard footsteps coming toward the door.

"Your trip was uneventful?" T'Pring said, stepping out of the way so that he could enter.

He had not seen T'Pring in almost a year, and the change in her appearance was…astonishing. Her glossy hair was pulled up into a complicated-looking arrangement that was, nevertheless, flattering. She was taller, too, and… _curvier_. When Spock moved past her, he caught a scent of something smoky and herbal at the same time.

He felt his ears grow warm.

"T'Zela asked me—" he began, but T'Pring shut the door and said, "She's waiting for you on the stone patio."

"Is she well?" he asked, genuinely alarmed.

"Her health is not in question," T'Pring said, though her tone contradicted the content of her words. So T'Zela was _not_ well. Why didn't T'Pring say so?

Following her through the house to the patio at the rear, Spock tried to consider what might be wrong. T'Zela's physical condition had always been precarious—though not progressively debilitating. Her injuries—catastrophic as they were—had stabilized long ago.

A sudden illness, then?

He opened his mouth to ask T'Pring to elaborate when she stepped to the side and motioned him on to the patio alone.

"She wants to see you now," T'Pring said, and Spock stood for a moment, his chest heaving, so close to T'Pring that he caught another whiff of her scent.

"You are here at last," T'Zela called, obviously catching a glimpse of him standing in the doorway. "Come speak to me, _Spohkh-kam_ , and tell me all about what you are doing."

"Lady T'Zela," he said formally, knowing she would protest.

Which she did—with a twinkle in her eye.

"Save such words for elders who need them," she said, and Spock nodded. It was a _joke_ between them, a ritual that always, as his mother said, _broke the ice_.

T'Zela motioned for Spock to sit beside her, and as soon as he did, she began.

"You are making adequate progress in school?"

"I am, T'Zela," Spock said, surprised. His school performance could not be unknown to her—indeed, it was just the kind of information his parents would have been certain to pass onto T'Pring's family.

"Have you settled on what you wish to do after school?"

"I am applying to the Vulcan Science Academy," Spock said, again somewhat surprised at T'Zela's question. His intention to continue his education at the VSA had never been in doubt. Almost every time he visited T'Zela, he said something about it—once showing her the course listings and asking for her advice on an area of concentration, another time sharing the names of several prominent researchers who had expressed an interest in working with him if he came.

"And you are sure about this?"

"Yes. Very."

"And," T'Zela said, "if you should not be accepted? What then?"

For a moment Spock didn't know what to say. The idea that he would not be accepted had never occurred to him. His grades were exemplary—as were his recommendations from his teachers.

"I have no reason to think I will not be accepted," he said, and T'Zela nodded slowly.

"I am certain you are correct," she said, and for the first time, Spock could hear how labored her breathing was. "And yet, there are always possibilities. My own life has not followed the course I charted for it when I was your age. You might do well to consider that."

Again Spock was struck mute. Of course T'Zela was right—the future was never set, and preparing for multiple options was wise. At the moment, however, he couldn't imagine what another option might be.

"My grand-daughter tells me that she is continuing her studies at the Vulcan Architectural Institute. How fortunate for you both."

T'Zela's meaning was instantly clear. For some months T'Pring had toyed with the idea of studying on Betazed at the Art and Design School there, a well-regarded program that would give her some leverage in looking for work later.

The Vulcan Architectural Institute, on the other hand, was in Shi'Kahr near the campus of the VSA.

The thought that T'Pring might go off-world to study had not troubled him before. With a start, he realized that the idea that she would be close by was…appealing.

As if on cue, T'Pring came out onto the stone patio, carrying a small tray of sliced fruit.

"Grandmother," she said, offering T'Zela some first. "Spock," she said, holding his gaze with her dark eyes as she lifted the tray for his inspection.

T'Zela excused herself soon after, leaving T'Pring in charge of completing their evening meal.

"I tire easily these days," T'Zela said, maneuvering her chair back toward the house, "but you two have much to discuss. I will see you in the morning."

The evening was not as awkward as it could have been, Spock thought later when he sat cross-legged on the floor and tried to empty his mind for meditation. He had offered to help T'Pring in the kitchen and they put together a light meal—easy work, mostly done in silence, but companionable enough.

They carried their food back outside to the patio and watched the sunset—and the _va'khen_ catching the distant updrafts before nesting in the trees as the dark swept over the desert.

Through it all he felt light-headed and distracted by the odd conversation with T'Zela and his growing awareness of T'Pring's— _he struggled to know what to call it_ —her maturity? Surely it was more than that.

He couldn't put his finger on it.

But something had changed.

In the morning he went for a run—something he usually did at home before eating—hoping to clear his head with sweat and heat and exercise. T'Zela was waiting for him when he returned—tea and bread ready on the kitchen table.

"T'Pring has not risen yet," she said, motioning to Spock to have a seat. "You and I like the morning more."

Spock cupped his hands around his mug and concentrated on catching his breath.

"My father is an early riser," he said when he could speak without huffing. "My mother likes to sleep in when she can."

"My bondmate was the same," T'Zela said, and Spock sat up. She rarely talked about her bondmate, though from the little things she had said, Spock gathered that theirs had been a harmonious relationship. "How odd to think that I used to chastise him for it. One's need for sleep—or lack of it—is not a matter of virtue."

They sat and drank their tea in silence for a few minutes.

"I am content that you and T'Pring have each other," T'Zela said at last, and Spock felt a small quiver of uneasiness. _The reason for the visit_ —logically T'Zela would explain it to him now.

"I do not tell you this to cause distress," T'Zela began, "but my…situation is changing. I find that the things that once were meaningful are not so fulfilling anymore."

Spock shifted uncomfortably and T'Zela caught his eye.

"I am tired, _Spohkh-kam_ ," she said, tilting her head slightly as she said his name. "This body—"

She raised her good arm a few inches and let it fall back onto her useless legs.

"It has served me as well as it can, but getting through the days has become a chore."

"You are unwell?" he said, unsure what she was telling him.

"No," T'Zela said slowly, "but I look forward to the day when my _katra_ is free. I have left instructions about that. Do not let them put me in a _vre'katra_. I have had enough of being contained."

And then, rousing herself and setting her teacup on the table, T'Zela said, "Do not concern yourself unduly. I am not dying—yet. That is not why I have asked you to come."

"I am always pleased to be with you," Spock said, and T'Zela nodded.

"I am glad," she said. "And I am glad to have T'Pring here. She is pleasant company for me. And I hope for you."

That evening as they finished their meal, T'Zela again pleaded exhaustion.

"Stay and enjoy each other's company," she said as she tucked her night shawl around her shoulders and headed down the hallway toward her bedroom. "I will see you early before you leave, Spock."

As soon as T'Zela was gone, a palpable silence fell between the two young people. They sat across from each other at the table, their dishes still in front of them.

"Would you care for tea?" T'Pring said, her voice startling in the quiet room.

"Thank you," Spock said.

He watched her rise and go to the sink to fill a traditional pot with water. From this angle he could see the fluid motion of her hips as she walked around the kitchen, and to his dismay, he felt himself responding.

When she turned back to the table, their eyes met—and Spock flushed again as T'Pring's dark eyes widened slightly.

She walked slowly around the table and stood next to where he sat, uncomfortably aroused now. As if in a dream, he watched her reach her hand toward him, letting her fingers drift down his cheek and over his chest.

His eyes closed and he shivered.

"Stand up," her heard T'Pring say, and he opened his eyes. "Do you really want tea?"

He shook his head gently and she lowered her arms as he pushed back his chair and stood up.

There it was again, that smoky, erotic scent that made him want to lean into her and breathe.

Reaching for her hand, he stepped closer. He felt his fingers graze her own—and the connection between them flared up like a match.

For so long he had relegated her to a tiny corner of his mind—and now he was overwhelmed by her, by his own need for her.

They did not speak as they walked to T'Pring's bedroom, nor did they say a word as they slid quickly out of their clothes and lay panting and sweating together, his inexpert and tentative touches becoming surer, the warmth of their bodies pulling him forward, forward, until they lay gasping in each other's ear.

Nor did they speak as they lay beside each other later, slowly becoming chilled in the night air, until T'Pring got up and retrieved her robe from her closet and Spock wrapped himself in her duvet.

Their lovemaking had been as he had imagined it would be—and at the same time, completely alien—his hesitation countered by T'Pring's steady assurance. He watched her resettle herself in the bed beside him, pulling her robe around her.

"You've done this before," he said, suddenly sure. And just as suddenly, he knew why T'Zela had brought them together for the weekend.

"Yes," T'Pring said.

The ache he felt was predictable—and logical, he thought. They were bonded, it was true, but not married—and unmarried Vulcans could and did have sex with each other. T'Pring had done nothing wrong—but Spock felt threatened…and angry.

And disappointed—but not, as he told himself later, because of what T'Pring had done with another, but what she did not feel for him. And what he did not feel for her.

Even as he was caught up in the pleasurable release of heat and motion, he had been dimly aware that this was incomplete—empty—that the connection that flared up between them was little more than physical attraction…that in the recesses of his thoughts, he still could think of little to ask her about herself, had little inclination to share much about himself with her.

Her mind did not _interest_ him. Nor did she reach out to him.

They parted the next morning without saying much else, except for a promise to meet during the long school break.

Over the next two years they saw each other five times, four of those surrounded by family and without a chance to exchange any words in private. By then Spock had reconciled himself to the idea that he and T'Pring would eventually make a home and raise a family without experiencing the sort of intimacy that his parents seemed to share.

That thought was both a sadness and a relief—certainly his life with T'Pring would have less drama.

After T'Zela died—alone in her home, found by a neighbor who came to check on her—at her memorial service Spock's grief tumbled out as he said to T'Pring, "Her _katra_ is lost."

"Her _katra_ is free," T'Pring replied.

The last time that he saw T'Pring was two months later, shortly after leaving school. They argued—bitterly— in between angry sex in the apartment T'Pring had rented near the VSA and the Vulcan Architectural Institute—her unspoken assumption that they would share it the source of his anger, his turning down his acceptance to the VSA hers.

The connection that had flared up like a match spluttered out—and Spock headed to Earth and the peculiar purgatory of living among humans.

X X X X X X X

This time, Spock makes sure to close his door before making a subspace call.

The subspace transceiver in his apartment is still broken—despite two attempts to repair it. A replacement is on order, but until it arrives, he will have to make all his off-planet calls from his office.

He almost doesn't call—he has tried repeatedly to contact T'Pring to no avail—and while he resists the interpretation that she is deliberately avoiding him, it _is_ the most logical explanation.

She is such a dim presence that for long stretches of time he cannot feel her at all, only bumping into the _idea_ of her when it is inconvenient.

Such as in the past month, since Nyota Uhura became his teacher's aide.

Nyota isn't the first aide he has had in the four years since he began teaching at the Academy, but she is the first who has been satisfactory.

No, not just satisfactory. Excellent.

And not that she doesn't make mistakes—she isn't perfect.

But her work ethic and her willingness to try harder, try again, means that she never lets a project go idle, never leaves an assignment incomplete.

In this, she reminds him of himself.

Although T'Pring's housekeeper usually answers the calls, this time Spock is surprised to see her father's face on the screen instead. Like most Vulcans, Suvak's expression is impassive, though as he greets Spock and makes polite inquiries, his voice sounds slightly strained—or perhaps the call has caught him by surprise.

"How are your parents?" Suvak says, and Spock hesitates for a moment before answering. He has not spoken to Suvak in over three years—this man who is slated to be his father-in-law some day. Their distance and formality suddenly strike Spock as awkward.

"My mother is well," Spock says at last, "but my father may need heart surgery."

Suvak's expression does not change.

"Indeed," he says mildly. "And you? How does your work progress at Starfleet?"

From anyone else, the question would be innocent and his answer easy. His work at the Academy keeps him from the kind of active duty in Starfleet the question implies. Is Suvak criticizing his choice? Or applauding it?

"My work at the _Academy_ is…satisfactory," Spock says.

"My housekeeper tells me that you have called recently," Suvak says suddenly, apparently finished with small talk.

To his dismay, Spock feels himself flush with anger.

"This is the fifth time in three weeks that I have called," he says, and Suvak nods.

"My apologies on T'Pring's behalf," he says. "She has been leading a study group on a tour of architectural sites, most of them off-planet. In fact," he adds, "her tour concludes on Earth. I am certain that she will contact you to arrange a visit while she is there."

Of all the things Suvak could have said, this is the most unexpected.

T'Pring's silence—suddenly explained. Not avoiding him at all, but traveling.

For a moment Spock is skeptical—but the possibility that Suvak is dissembling is remote. He has no reason to lie, and if he did, Spock could find out.

And then relief floods him—the relationship is not broken. And T'Pring is coming to Earth. He feels lighter than he has in weeks.

Struggling to regain his composure, Spock takes a breath and says, "When will T'Pring be here? I look forward to seeing her."

Something out of range of the viewer catches Suvak's attention—he turns his attention away for a moment and then looks back at Spock. When he speaks, his voice betrays a hint of some emotion Spock cannot identify.

"She is—already there," Suvak says, surprising Spock yet again. She's on Earth, and he didn't know? He doesn't sense her at all, nor has she tried to contact him. If he hadn't called her home, would he have found out?

Before he can ask Suvak to explain, T'Pring's father adds hastily, "Her schedule is quite busy. Her mother and I have had infrequent contact with her ourselves."

So. Her silence is not for him alone. He will have to consider the implications of that later, when he has time and quiet to think.

"I will forward her Terran itinerary to you," Suvak says before Spock can gather his thoughts. "Then you can contact her directly."

The conversation ends shortly afterward. Within a minute after hanging up, Spock sees the promised itinerary listed in his electronic mail.

She's here on Earth. He will see her soon.

For the first time since he started trying to contact her weeks ago, Spock has a wave of ambivalence. Does he want to see her? They are, after all, intended for one another—bonded together, their essences touching in a way that almost defies logic and strays into mysticism.

_Of course he wants to see her._

Or rather, he _needs_ to see her.

Except for occasional conversations via subspace, they have not been in each other's physical presence since he left for the Academy eight years ago—not a long time in the measure of a life, but too long when measured against the loneliness and newness of lives spent separately.

He leans back in his chair and considers.

The troubling distractions of late—his difficulty focusing on his work—his inappropriate and unwanted longing for… another.

Perhaps the separation from T'Pring is the source of his difficulties. They parted badly—

But since then she has completed her own education and taken an assignment as a designer in a prominent architectural research firm on Vulcan—and now, apparently, she is also teaching. _Leading a study group_ —that's what her father said. Spock tries to imagine T'Pring with students but fails.

 _If she's here_ —he quickly calculates the odds that they will have time for a private conversation if she is traveling with a group.

He could offer her a place to stay at his apartment.

And in his bed.

The idea is both provocative and uncomfortable—and he is instantly ashamed that his plans are manipulative and self-serving.

 _His human side_ , he thinks bitterly.

In the distance he hears footsteps on the bottom stairs—Nyota then, coming to work earlier than he expected.

For the first time since she began working as his teaching assistant, he doesn't dread seeing her. The news about T'Pring fortifies him—makes him feel more resilient somehow, better able to cope with working in close quarters together.

He hears her reaching the second floor landing and his mood brightens—they will be able to recover the equilibrium they had before, when she was safe and distant in his classroom, her physical presence confined to a desk on the front row.

Her quickness of thought, her courage to speak—those attributes that caught his attention first, before—anything else—he can go back to appreciating her with uncomplicated pleasure, can return to finding contentment in her company.

That will be possible now.

Now that he is getting his life back on course—or at least, anchoring himself to a stable future—predictable, secure.

Underneath his ruminations he feels vaguely uneasy, as if he were playing a chess game blindfolded.

By the time Nyota slips through the door and lets her backpack slide off her shoulder, he has set his uncertainty aside.

As she always does, she smiles and suggests a cup of tea before she begins work.

"Do you still have any of that Kenyan tea?" she asks. He quashes a wave of…regret? Disappointment?

When he points to the shelf where the box sits beside a new picture cube, Nyota flashes a grin and turns to pick it up, pausing briefly to inspect the images on the cube.

"I haven't seen these before," she says.

"They are replacements for the one that broke."

"May I?" she says, darting a quick look in his direction.

"Of course," Spock says, eyeing her closely as she gently lifts the picture cube with her left hand, shifting it slightly to see the images on all sides.

"This is your home?"

"My parents' home," he says. Saying it that way— _my parents' home_ —makes something final that wasn't final before. _His parents' home._ Not his.

"But," Nyota says, moving toward the desk where he still sits, his hands folded in his lap, "you grew up there. In this house?"

Her voice is oddly intense and earnest, as if she is asking about a serious matter. In spite of himself, he feels amused…and he struggles to keep his face from giving him away.

"Yes, Cadet Uhura," he says, "that was my house when I lived with my parents."

"And this was your garden?"

"Not that same one, but one like it. All of the plants are annuals."

"And this is your little sister?"

He peers at the cube as she holds it up for his inspection.

"The daughter of my father's cousin. I have no sisters."

"Another cousin?" Nyota says, tipping the cube toward him. For a moment he is too flustered to speak.

"A…friend," he says.

Even as Nyota sets the cube back on the shelf and moves toward the door with the tea canister in her hand, he angles his body away from her. He needs time to consider his evasion when Nyota asked about the picture of T'Pring.

He called her a _friend_ —not a lie, not exactly.

Or rather, it _may be_ a lie—a lie he has not acknowledged as a lie until now.

T'Pring is not his friend. Not in the sense that he allowed Nyota to think he meant.

Not even in the very limited way that he thinks of Nyota as a friend—as someone whose welfare means something to him.

As someone whose interest in him feels genuine instead of prurient—whose willingness to share her stories about herself is a measure of her generous nature.

In a single month he has learned more about her than he knows about T'Pring.

Details, small ones, that add up to a sum greater than their parts.

He knows that Nyota broke her wrist from a fall when she was 12 running barefoot.

That the resulting orthopedic treatment was so fascinating that for a time she considered medicine as a career.

That her wrist, completely healed and with no scar, occasionally sports a chronometer, but when she wears it, she rarely looks at it, preferring instead to ask him the time.

That she finds endless amusement at his being able to answer her—to the millisecond if she asks.

That she often runs fearlessly up the first flight of stairs of the lab building, waiting on the second floor landing and catching her breath before walking calmly the rest of the way.

That she hides her sweaty exertion by ducking into the break room, calling out an offer to make tea before starting her work.

That she puts milk in her tea but will drink it without if she has to.

That she never fails to offer him a cup, too.

That when she gives him his mug, handle out, her slender wrist turned delicately to the side, he has to compose himself to keep his hand from shaking.

When she comes back into his office with their tea mugs today, he makes a point of motioning to his desk.

"Set it there," he says, and she puts his mug down before seating herself in the chair at his computer.

They slip easily into their routine, and from time to time she asks a question—"Do you want a hard copy of Professor Lauter's notes?"—and he feels a peaceful contentment.

 _T'Pring will be here soon._ His thoughts keep circling back to that reality. She will be here—the person he should know best. Until now he hadn't realized how empty that part of his life is—how much his loneliness, unspoken and often denied—is unnecessary, self-imposed.

She will be here, and they will resume their relationship as other bonded couples do. With friendship, first, and then, perhaps, with more.

"What should I do with this note from Vulcan?" Nyota asks. "I don't have a file set up for personal mail."

"Open it," Spock says, almost impulsively. Suddenly he needs to see the itinerary to believe that the visit is real. He gets up from his chair and moves to stand behind Nyota, reading over her shoulder.

"What is it?" she says, looking up at him. When she swings her head back, her ponytail flicks over his hand and he pulls his fingers away as if they are burned.

"A visit," he says, walking back to his desk. "Some friends from home."

Again the uneasy evasion—but Nyota doesn't seem to notice. Instead, she smiles broadly and says, "Oh, that's nice! When are they coming?"

"They are here," Spock says. "I expect to see them shortly."

Later today he will call the contact number listed in the itinerary. The study group is in New York tomorrow—an easy shuttle ride from San Francisco. If T'Pring prefers, he can travel there.

Or he can invite her to San Francisco.

_Patience._

That is what his mother calls _putting the cart before the horse_.

"If you don't mind," Nyota says, turning off his computer, "I'm going to go out to get some lunch."

She stands and stretches—something she does that showcases her lithe figure—and then she turns and says, "How about coming with me?"

Reflexively he starts to tell her no—but her gaze is so sincere that he hesitates.

"I know a good vegetarian place," she says, her voice honeyed and playful. "You'll like it."

Pushing back his chair, Spock stands and takes a step toward her.

And then all of once she disappears from his field of vision—at the same time he hears her breath rush out with a muted _oh_! Without thinking, he reaches out and catches her as she tumbles forward, his left arm on her own, his right arm around her waist.

"My ankle—" she says, but her words are drowned out by the roaring in his mind, like a wind rushing across the landscape.

There she is, a bright presence in front of him.

Even as he grasps her cool arm and steadies her, he brushes against her mind, also—sitting in the lab, leaning over the console, rushing up the stairs, blowing a gentle breath to cool her tea—he sees her in the multiple images that haunt his dreams and make his meditation time a trial.

And just as quickly as she is there, she pulls away, disentangling herself from his hold, giving a visible shake and a short, sharp laugh.

"I'm sorry!" she says, not meeting his gaze.

"Your ankle—" he begins, but she steps forward toward the door, testing her weight on her foot.

"I—it gave way," she says, looking into his face at last.

They stand for a moment longer.

"I'm fine now," Nyota says, breaking the silence. "It was only a momentary weakness."

He has no doubt about what she knows now. In the moment that their minds touched, she saw what he sees and knew what he knows—that his connection to her is _mystifying_ and illogical—and important in a way he doesn't yet understand.

But more than that, he saw what she sees and knows what she knows—that her feelings echo his own.

 


	7. Logic

**Chapter Seven: Logic**

**Disclaimer: I did not create these characters, but I did put them in this mess.**

The diner closest to the Academy is packed, people spilling out the front door. Spock says nothing but Nyota senses his unease—or distaste—at the idea of pressing forward through the crowd. The cant of his posture, the hesitation in his step, are easy enough to read.

"Come on," she says, turning on her heel and leading him in the opposite direction. "There's another place around the corner."

She's not as familiar with the restaurant she leads him to, and to her surprise, she feels anxious. What if it doesn't have vegan choices? Granted, most places do—but she is suddenly skittish about offending him, particularly since she twisted his arm to get him to come.

 _Twisting his arm_ isn't quite accurate. He agreed readily enough to join her.

Only a few people are sitting at scattered tables when they arrive at the second restaurant, and a waitress quickly leads them to a quiet corner. As they pass an older couple near the door, Nyota sees them following her with their gaze, frowning. _What's that about_ , she wonders briefly before settling into her seat and picking up the printed menu already on the table.

"Not too many choices," she says apologetically, looking over the top of her menu at Spock. She tries to smile—and he makes a tiny motion with his shoulders, not quite a shrug.

With a sigh she scans her menu again. She should have begged off going to lunch now that she knows— _but what does she know?_

She raises the menu in front of her face and thinks again about that moment as she fell in his office—his arm reaching out and circling her waist, his hand gripping her arm. The electricity and heat traveling up her body until her ears were tingling, and over all, a realization that he felt for her…what? Affection? More?

In the quiet of the little restaurant she begins to doubt her memory. Lowering the menu slightly, she sneaks a glance at his face. It is as calm and composed as usual—not the face of someone struggling to hide _affection_ …or more. Could she have imagined what she thought she felt from him?

The images of herself—in all attitudes, clearly from his point of view—she didn't imagine those.

They had flashed through her mind like images on a screen, vivid and real.

But that's all they were—images from their moments together as they worked, nothing remarkable about them.

The _emotions_ , however—could she have been confused by her _own_ feelings, broadcast large and reflected back to her when they touched?

If she's honest, she isn't sure what those emotions are—respect and admiration, certainly, and a physical pull that is almost tangible.

 _Nothing is going to happen._ Not merely a prediction, but a resolve.

She sighs.

They order and sit in silence for several minutes.

"So," Nyota says, her voice coming out unnaturally loud in the small room. She grins sheepishly— _sorry!_ —and starts again, this time almost whispering.

"Your friends? Are they from Vulcan?"

Spock blinks twice, something she has noticed that he does when he wants to stall for time.

"Only one is a…friend," he says, a shadow crossing his expression. "She is traveling with a study group."

"Oh!" Nyota says, genuinely surprised. She recalls the overheard conversation with Spock's father— _I do not sense her_ —and thinks of the image of the young woman in the picture cube, the one Spock had called his friend. The woman who is traveling?

Her stomach does an odd flip.

"When are you going to see them? Didn't you say they were here now?"

"They leave tomorrow evening," Spock says, looking up as the waiter passes by, dirty dishes in hand. "I have not contacted them yet about a possible rendezvous."

"Tomorrow! Then shouldn't you go ahead and call? You might miss them."

Does she imagine it, or does Spock look…uncomfortable? Her face is instantly hot—perhaps she is being overly familiar, asking so many personal questions. And if he picked up on her feelings earlier when he touched her—

Somehow she will have to disabuse him of the notion that he is anything more to her than a professor, her supervisor. Regulations are clear—and she's had this conversation with herself recently in the past two weeks. Any feelings she might have— _whatever they are_ —are private and will be kept that way. From everyone.

"I called them before we came to lunch but could not get through. I will call when we return from our meal," he says, and Nyota is suddenly flustered.

"Where are they anyway? Your _friend,_ I mean."

At her emphasis on the word _friend_ , Spock tilts his head and looks at her closely.

_Nothing is going to happen._

"The group is in New York right now. This is the last leg of an extended tour."

"And they leave tomorrow?"

"As I said."

"Then why don't you just go there? Surprise her. I mean," Nyota says, aping a nonchalance she doesn't feel, "New York is only fifteen minutes away by shuttle. You could take the afternoon off—I don't have any tutorials scheduled. That is, if you want to."

Whatever he is going to say is interrupted by the tardy appearance of the waiter who sets plates down in front of them and then busies himself refreshing their drinks.

For a few moments they are occupied with their meal—and Nyota thinks again of the strange episode in his office. Did she imagine all that? Already the memory feels blurred around the edges, as if she dreamed it instead.

Nothing is going to happen because she isn't going to let it happen. Whatever she thought she saw—or felt—in the office…she isn't going to dwell on it like some silly lovesick schoolgirl.

"Commander," she says, and he looks up expectantly, "really, if you are worried about the lab, I have it covered. That is, if you want to catch the shuttle to New York."

For a moment Spock looks at her with his unblinking, penetrating stare that has, on occasion, unnerved some poor cadet who spoke out of turn or whose comments in class were so intemperate that they did not deserve a verbal reply.

"Cadet Uhura," he says at last, "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, it is not in my nature to, as you said, _just go there_. I will call again shortly and make arrangements then."

"But what if you can't get through? You might—" She stops herself before she can finish that thought. Dimly she hears how bizarre this conversation is—how her words are at odds with what she herself wants.

"Look," she says, deciding on a different tack, "I know that the logical thing to do is to wait until you can get someone to answer before you take off for New York—"

She notes his raised eyebrow when she says _logical_ , but she presses on. "But maybe you should set logic aside this time. Do what is spontaneous instead of what is thought out. And don't give me that look," she says, laughing. "Sometimes the best things in life are the things we don't plan for."

As the last syllable escapes her mouth, she hears how pompous she must sound. Lecturing him on logic, of all things.

"I'm sorry," she says, offering a small smile as an apology. "I didn't mean to get so preachy. It's just—"

She pauses, waiting for some sign that Spock isn't upset or offended, that he finds what she says humorous, or at least, forgettable. For a moment his expression is unfathomable, dark; she feels a shiver of worry that she has overstepped her bounds.

"You are hardly a model of spontaneity," he says, picking his fork back up, his gaze softening a degree. "You never missed a deadline in either of the courses you took under me, nor can I recall any time since you became my aide that you have asked to change your schedule."

Tilting his head as if in deep thought, he adds, "Your urging me to fly to New York is out of character for you. Perhaps you simply want the rest of the afternoon unencumbered by my presence."

His playfulness is a relief, and she replies, "Ah, Commander, you don't know me as well as you think you do."

On a whim she says, "What time is it," and he answers immediately.

"1437. And 13 seconds."

Stifling her laughter, she pulls out her comm, thumbs through several screens, and says, "Ah ha! Here you go."

She holds it up for him to see.

"There's a shuttle leaving for New York in twenty minutes. You could buy a ticket right now."

Later that night when she is in her dorm room trying to lull herself to sleep, she reruns this scene a dozen times, each time just as mystified at herself.

There she is, holding out her comm, trying to put his happiness before her own—

What she knows is this:

That when he took the comm from her hand, she hoped that he would order his ticket and put to rest her useless, barely acknowledged, impossible longing.

And stronger still, she hoped he wouldn't.

X X X X X X X

He almost drowned twice when he was 13.

The first time was on Vulcan, the second on Earth—and both times he was with his cousin Chris.

When they were older, Spock and Chris would sometimes allude to the near-drownings with a word or phrase dropped casually and darkly into an otherwise normal conversation, daring the other to react with more than a knowing glance or a slight nod.

Often these conversations happened over a vegetarian meal at a diner halfway between Starfleet Academy and the medical university where Chris was doing his residency in psychiatry. At least twice a month the cousins found time to meet—often hurriedly, but always with relief for the welcome diversion.

"Remember that boulder in the river?" Chris might say, and Spock would reply, "The word you mean is _rock_. Its size precludes the term _boulder_."

The rock Chris referred to often looms in Spock's dreams—just large enough for the two boys—the 13-year-old Vulcan and Chris at 16—to huddle on all night, waiting for rescue from the swollen river.

It was a week into a rare visit from Amanda's sister Cecilia—visiting Vulcan for a pediatric medical symposium. Chris had tagged along, and he and Spock spent much of the week planning an overnight camping trip into the foothills near Shi'Kahr.

While they were still getting ready, Sarek returned from a long diplomatic journey to Altair 12, a mild cough he had nursed for weeks suddenly worsening, his fever spiking up enough to alarm Amanda.

"Stop being stubborn and let me call the healer," Spock heard his mother saying late one night as he and Chris sat up in his bedroom looking through science journals for information on the flora and fauna they would likely see when they went camping. "At least let Cecilia look at you."

The boys made eye contact and wordlessly stood up and wandered into the hall just as Amanda walked past.

"Chris," she said, a sheen of perspiration on her brow, "ask your mother to come here. I need her."

While Chris hurried down the hall toward the guest room, Spock went with Amanda back to her bedroom.

He had rarely seen his father sick, and the sight of Sarek lying on the bed, his face mottled, his hair rumpled, was unsettling. Standing hesitantly by the door, he watched his mother's anxious, fretful movements as she hovered near his father. Her anxiety echoed his own—as if they were two ends of a vibrating string.

When his aunt came in, Amanda looked up at her with what Spock thought might be fear in her eyes. _Was his father truly that ill?_ He watched his aunt closely as she ran her portable medical scanner and checked her chronometer.

"You might be in fibrillation," his aunt said after a moment. "The hospital has a better scanner—and if you are, you need treatment right away or you could suffer some damage to your heart. I'm guessing you picked up a virus on Altair—another reason you need to go on to the hospital. We can access the database there to see if this is a native bug or something you brought back."

"If I am allowed to rest—" Sarek began and Amanda huffed loudly.

"Sarek!"

"It is my health," Sarek said. "It is my decision."

Cecilia pocketed her scanner and crossed her arms as she stood beside the bed.

"It _is_ your health," she said, "but it is also our health. If this isn't something native, we've all been exposed. Your family could be at risk—"

To Spock's surprise, his father frowned visibly and struggled to sit up.

"Very well," he said. "Call ahead and tell them we are coming."

The rest of the evening was a blur—Sarek barely able to walk on his own to the transport, Amanda holding onto his arm to steady him, Cecilia walking close enough on his other side to catch him if he should start to fall.

Chris and Spock stayed up most of the night, alternately reading and talking, until Cecilia came back right before daylight, telling them that Sarek was stable—that her guess about a virus had been on target.

"We'll know more when the tests come back," she told the boys as she shooed them on to bed. "But he's going to be alright."

 _Was that certain?_ That was the kind of baseless assurance that humans sometimes gave as a form of comfort. He would have preferred more actual data—but his aunt toddled off to her own bedroom before he could ask many questions.

The next few days passed slowly—Amanda and Cecilia often gone for hours and the boys forced to cadge for meals on their own. They spent much of their time discussing their plans, and before they knew it, the modest overnight hike morphed into a much more ambitious three-day trek past the western foothills and down a ravine to an ancient grove of _sher skah_ trees.

If they had known what the boys were planning, neither Amanda nor Cecilia would have agreed to let them go—but coached by Chris, Spock omitted the more alarming facts.

Such as that the rainy season—which began recently and lasted another month—was the most active time for many predators— _le-matya_ s included.

And flash flooding in the ravine was not rare.

Despite Chris' unfamiliarity with the terrain, the first part of the trip was relatively easy, 8 kilometers through scrub brush and rolling hills. The hike up the foothills was harder, but by sunset they made it to their planned camping site where they set up a tent and heated some food before the temperature dropped too far to make sitting outside uncomfortable.

The pleasant camaraderie was a relief to Spock. From time to time he rubbed the scar on his thumb with his forefinger, remembering how difficult it had been to communicate with Chris telepathically—much to Chris' consternation.

Communicating in other ways, however—in silent communion under the stars, in quiet conversation sitting side by side—was quite satisfying.

In the morning they had their first disagreement. As Spock was packing up their supplies and adjusting his backpack, Chris pointed to a distant outcrop of rocks along one bank of the river that flowed nearby.

"Let's look for salamanders," he said, shouldering his own backpack. "Or whatever the equivalent is here. Those rocks are the perfect ecological niche for some creature."

Both Spock and Chris shared a wide-ranging interest in biology, including Chris' current obsession with reptiles and amphibians. He had already taken pictures of two snake-like animals that skittered across their path, and the idea of seeing something different was clearly exciting to him.

Spock, on the other hand, had serious reservations.

"Undoubtedly there are _shatarr_ in the rocks—but luring them out is difficult. If we want to get to the ravine before the rain this afternoon, we will not have time to stop now."

He looked meaningfully at the sky, where distant purple clouds were already gathering. Chris followed his gaze and then said, "How long will it take to hike down to the rocks?"

"At least an hour to hike down and back up to the trail," Spock answered.

"And how far are we from the ravine?"

"Sixteen kilometers."

Chris shifted the backpack and said, "And the rain will probably come late this afternoon. We can take a detour of an hour and be okay."

"If we detour now, we will arrive at the ravine after dark. Setting up camp will be difficult."

"But not impossible," Chris said. "Come on, if we can't stop to check out interesting things we see on the way, what's the fun?"

"The _fun_ is in achieving our goal."

"But our goal can change," Chris said, and then eyeing Spock carefully, he added, "It's _logical_ to expect things to change."

Seeing that Chris was going to counter every argument with one of his own, Spock reluctantly agreed to the detour.

The trip down to the river took longer than either boy had imagined—and by the time they reached the rock outcropping, clouds had already obscured the sun and the temperature was falling.

"Be careful," Spock cautioned as Chris knelt down and stuck his hand in the crack of a rock. " _Shatarr_ are poisonous. While I do not think you would die from a bite, you might become very ill."

"Now you tell me," Chris said, standing up. "Well, what do they eat? Maybe I can get one to poke its head out if I offer it something."

"I am uncertain," Spock said, but Chris was already pulling out his comm and scrolling through the information he had stored there.

"What are _aluk_? This list I downloaded says that's what they eat."

"Fish," Spock said, slipping his backpack off his shoulders. He looked up once more at the sky and then let himself slip into the peculiar joy of solving a problem. Within 20 minutes he had fashioned a reasonable fish net and was testing it at the edge of the river.

Catching a fish proved harder than it looked. Spock was so surprised the first time that he managed to scoop up a tiny silver fish that he dropped it back into the river when he let go of his makeshift net.

The second fish took longer, but this time Spock was careful not to let it escape.

"There's definitely something in here," Chris said from his perch on top of the largest of the boulders. "Did you get anything?"

Instead of answering, Spock scrambled up, holding the net closed with one hand. Grinning broadly, Chris pinched his fingers together and picked up the wriggling _aluk_.

"Come and get it," he said, dangling the little fish over the crack that ran across the top of the boulder. Spock was startled to feel a sudden squeamishness. Catching the fish had been one thing. Participating in its death was another.

In the distance he could hear thunder rumbling—rain was falling far to the north, yet a quick glance showed clear patches of sky overheard. Spock turned back to watch Chris' efforts to lure a _shatarr_ from its hiding place.

The rumbling continued, and then grew much louder. Both Chris and Spock looked up—and both realized at the same moment what was happening.

The noise of trees crashing and the scrape of rocks tumbling through the riverbed was the only warning of the wall of water that was bearing down on them. Flinging the fish and Spock's net from his hand, Chris threw himself flat on the boulder and shouted out.

"Hold on!" he screamed, and Spock grabbed the back of Chris' shirt as the flash flood rolled over them, jerking him forward and banging him down along one side of the boulder. He felt his hands lose their grip on Chris' shirt and he scrambled wildly, grabbing at anything to keep himself from being swept away.

Muddy red water filled his mouth and nose, choking him. Sand and tiny rocks scraped his face and stung his eyes.

Somehow in the rushing water he managed to catch hold of a woody twig that grew from one side of the boulder. As he felt it starting to give way, Spock had a moment of genuine panic—if he lost his grip, he would be swept downstream, crushed by the swirling rocks if he didn't drown first.

With a sickening pop, Spock felt the twig give way, but instead of being caught in the current, he felt the water rush over him as Chris grabbed his wrist.

Almost as suddenly as it came, the wall of water moved past, filling the riverbed with murky waves. Bushes and broken branches floated by. The water receded slowly, slowly, until the top of the boulder was once more uncovered.

Spock and Chris inched their way forward until they were able to sit upright, shivering, Chris' hand still tight around his cousin's wrist.

The chilly morning soon enough became a relentlessly hot afternoon, and then twilight fell fast—and still the water was too deep around their boulder for them to make their way to the shore. The boys spent a miserable night leaning into each other against a relentless wind—saying little but feeling many things—relief, of course, and regret, too, for not being more mindful of the distant storm that was filling up the washout with water.

And underneath that, something Spock couldn't articulate, a sense of being intensely _alive_ —on the brink, skirting disaster. It was almost…enjoyable.

A few hours after daybreak the water had fallen enough that they could wade back to shore and start their trip home. Their backpacks with all their equipment were lost, making the walk back hot and thirsty—but by late afternoon they straggled in, tired and caked with mud, and very, very glad to be home.

"It's my fault," Chris said when Spock's house was in sight. It was the first thing either had said about what had happened. Spock wasn't sure how to respond.

It _was_ Chris' fault—and it was his own, too. He had let himself be convinced to stray from their plan—to do something off their itinerary. His actions had not been logical—and had almost cost him his life.

They said nothing else about it, not to each other, and definitely not to Amanda and Cecilia when later that evening the sisters brought Sarek home from the medical center.

If they had, Amanda would never have let Spock visit Chris in Seattle a month later.

One morning Spock awoke to the sound of a muffled thud. Thunder? The rainy season was almost over, but occasionally early morning showers scattered enough water to keep the night flowers open past dawn.

He lay quietly in his bed, trying to discern exactly what he had heard, when suddenly he heard it again—that same thud, though louder this time, and closer.

To his surprise, his door opened and there was his mother, still slipping her arms into her robe.

"Spock," she said breathlessly, and he jumped up immediately. "Get your bag. Senek is coming by to give you a ride to the transport station."

He knew why. Two days ago Sarek had come home from his office in the city earlier than expected, sweaty and pale, and had spent the evening alternately restlessly pacing in his study or finding fault with everything Spock did.

"If you cannot practice with some semblance of skill," he said to his astonished son, "put that _ka'athyra_ away."

From the corner of his eye Spock had caught his mother's look— _don't say anything_ —and he quietly replaced his _ka'athyra_ on the shelf and retreated to his room.

The next day Sarek went to work as usual, but by the time Spock returned from school, his father was already home, again noticeably agitated. His mother met him at the door, steering him back outside.

"If you had to, could you miss a few days of school?"

He thought about his current research project, a tiny biosphere set up to observe the natural mutations of minnow-sized _aluk_ exposed to various wavelengths of light. Untended it would be ruined—the data invalid—several weeks' worth of work in vain.

"Of course," he said, watching his mother's anxious face. She was trying hard to shield him from something, but her worry buzzed in his mind.

"If Father unwell?" he asked. His mother smiled then—or attempted to.

"No" she said, reaching out and touching Spock's arm. "But he needs—"

She said nothing else, and suddenly Spock knew.

The never-spoken truth that dogged him…his own future someday.

That night he packed enough clothes for a week and sent Chris a note that he might be coming soon. He had never traveled to Earth alone—always either his mother or both of his parents were with him—but his mother had quashed his concern earlier.

"You aren't nervous, are you?" she said with some exasperation in her voice. "You're almost 14, Spock. And Sis will be at the transport station in Seattle to pick you up. Stop bothering me and get your stuff together."

To his relief _and_ his disappointment, the trip to Earth was as uneventful as his mother had imagined.

On the other hand, the trip from the transport station to Chris' house was exciting.

"When did you get your license?" Spock asked as Chris flagged him down in the crowded station and led him outside to the family flitter.

Chris snapped a look at the chronometer on his wrist.

"47 minutes ago," he said, grinning.

The flitter had an altitude limit of 12 meters—but Spock estimated that even from that height, a crash could cause considerable personal injury. He watched the ground bob up and down unevenly as Chris piloted them home.

No one asked him why he was there.

Running out of the front door, his younger cousin Rachel lifted her arms and wrapped them around his waist, just as he threw up his shields. If she felt his distance, she didn't let on.

"You're finally here!" she exclaimed, tugging him by the sleeve into the house.

"Hold up!" Chris yelled, pulling Spock's bag from the back seat. "Give him some room!"

That night as Spock was unpacking his kit in the attic room that passed for his when he visited, all three of his cousins came inside and scattered, sitting on the floor or the inflatable mattress. Looking around, Spock remembered other times they had gathered this way, away from adult eyes.

"How long are you going to stay?" Anna asked, and Spock lifted his shoulders in his approximation of a shrug.

"Unknown," he said.

"Can you stay the rest of the summer?" Rachel asked. It was summer on Earth—he hadn't realized that. His family often visited during the winter holidays—summer was infinitely preferable.

"That is unlikely," he said, and Rachel let a loud blast of air escape her lips. This little show of disgust—and the affection for him it implied—made him relax for the first time since he arrived.

The next few days flew by—literally. Enamored of his new ability to pilot the flitter, Chris took Spock everywhere in it. Twice they carried a lunch to the beach and spent the afternoon sailing Chris' Sunfish on the sound. One evening Anna invited some of her friends for a cookout and Spock spent most of the time uncomfortably surrounded by older girls, their curiosity in him pointed and embarrassing.

Each night after the sounds of the house had finally grown silent, Spock would lie on his mattress, his arms tucked behind his head, and reach out to feel the presence of his parents. There they were—in the recess of his mind—and though they were like dim shadows right now, he knew they were—as his cousin Rachel might say— _okay._

One morning a week after he arrived, Spock woke up from a light slumber with a sudden awareness that his parents were well. When he came down from breakfast he announced that he would probably be going home soon.

"How do you know?" Rachel said, leaning on one elbow as she dipped her spoon languidly into her soggy cereal.

Spock saw Anna and Chris dart glances at each other—and then belatedly, Rachel did, too.

"Oh, _that_ ," she said, putting her spoon down. "We haven't played mailman even once, Spock."

And with a dramatic pout, she hopped up and took her cereal bowl to the sink.

Sure enough by mid-morning Amanda called her sister and made arrangements for Spock's return the next day.

"Let's walk to the spillway and see if we can find any salamanders," Chris said at lunchtime as they sat at the kitchen table and ate fruit and sandwiches that Cecilia set on a platter in front of them. "Since it's your last day."

Spock glanced up and exchanged a look with his cousin.

"Amphibians are still an area of interest?" Spock said.

"More than ever," Chris said.

From across the table both Anna and Rachel watched the conversation—and Spock had the impression that Chris' sisters somehow knew the subtext of his words. Had he told them what happened that night on Vulcan?

"Want to come?" Chris said to Anna, lifting a sandwich to his plate.

"No, thank you," she said. "I've heard enough about your obsession with _salamanders_."

So she knew. Cecilia seemed less informed.

"If you go out, make sure you get back before supper," she said.

The spillway had always been a favorite place for the Thomasson children, though as they had grown older, they visited it less. Built across the widest part of a small river, it acted as a weir, lowering the level of the water six feet and offering a fish ladder on the western bank.

When the water level was low, the more adventurous people would walk across the top of the spillway from one bank to the other. This was officially discouraged with signs warning against it—but at any given time, someone was making the crossing, arms splayed out like a tightrope walker.

Occasionally they fell in, too, though fortunately the river was slow and shallow.

"The last time I was here," Chris said, "I found two different species of newts. One seems to live on the spillway itself."

Spock watched him take a tentative step onto the flat surface of the spillway. The water flowing over it was only up to Chris' ankle, and he took another step forward.

"Come on," he said, turning back to where Spock stood on the bank.

"I am concerned for your safety," Spock said, and Chris laughed.

"I've done this a thousand times," he said.

Clearly he expected Spock to follow him.

"I prefer to remain dry," Spock said, and Chris stopped, twenty feet out on the spillway, and swiveled around.

"Are you kidding?"

"Never."

"It's not that deep."

"But your footing looks precarious."

"It's not," Chris said, motioning for Spock to join him.

And then before he could move, Spock saw Chris tumble backwards—his head hitting the concrete spillway, his body slipping swiftly beneath the water.

Without conscious thought, Spock found himself running across the top of the spillway to where Chris had disappeared. He jumped into the river feet first, raising his arms above his head so he could sink faster.

Dark with tannin, the water was too murky to see in very far. Making wide circles with his arms, Spock felt around for Chris. _Nothing_.

The sickening thud as Chris' head had hit the spillway echoed in Spock's ears. He kicked his feet and felt them tangling in something. Reaching down, he grasped and came up with a handful of eelgrass.

"Help!" he choked out when he surfaced, but no one seemed to be close enough to hear him. He took a breath and dove back into the water, flailing his arms and legs with rising panic.

And then he felt something brush past his cheek—and a jumble of images rushed through his mind…Rachel pouring a bowl of cereal and Anna rolling her eyes—and he lunged forward and grasped Chris' hair.

Tugging and shoving, Spock lifted Chris to the surface and tipped his face out of the water. To his dismay, his cousin's weight pressed him back under, and he swallowed a mouthful of brackish water.

Although he couldn't see, he could feel himself sinking. He kicked again, violently, and pushed Chris ahead of him.

For a moment he felt himself moving forward, but then he and Chris sank again, and again Spock choked as water filled his mouth and nose.

Suddenly he was very tired. His arms and legs were dead weights, dragging him under. Vaguely he considered letting go of his grasp on Chris—how easy it would be to unclench his fingers, to let himself drift down, down, to the bed of eelgrass, a newt or two swimming past him curiously.

His lungs were on fire—but he was so very tired. _Let go_ , he thought, aching to flex the cramp out of his fingers. _Let go_.

From far away he heard someone calling him—his mother?

He was drowning—he knew it. He was drowning, and his mother knew.

"I've got them!" someone yelled, and he felt sunlight and air. An arm, then two, lifting him from the water.

"Chris," he spluttered, and someone at his ear said, "We got him. We got him."

The concussion was minor but the medics kept Chris overnight in the hospital—a disappointment to Spock, whose transport home was so early that he would miss telling his cousin goodbye.

As Cecilia dropped him off at the station, he stood for a moment, looking at his aunt—her face so much like his mother's, and yet in many ways, not at all the same. It was puzzling—this connection between siblings.

"Please tell Chris," he said somberly, "that the mailman saved us."

"The mailman?" she said, her brow wrinkling. "At the river?"

"The mailman," Spock repeated. "He'll know what that means."

X X X X X X X X

The connection is busy.

Again.

The third time he dials the contact number listed on the itinerary, Spock permits himself a moment of annoyance. Time is slipping away.

He considers telling Nyota that he cannot go with her to lunch after all. He doesn't need a mid-day meal—nor does he really need the distraction of Nyota's company right now. What he needs is quiet—and time to think.

"Okay, I'm ready," she says, returning from locking the lab. Opening his mouth to tell her that he won't be joining her after all, he catches a glimpse of her expression.

She is frowning slightly—a troubled look in her eyes—and he feels a hitch in his side. Without a word he tucks his hands behind his back and follows her out the language building.

The restaurant is crowded—excessively so. A fire code violation?

"Come on," Nyota says, turning on her heel and leading him in the opposite direction. "There's another place around the corner."

The second restaurant is much less crowded—only seven other customers—not a good sign if the quality of food is any indication. When they are led to a table in the far corner, Spock notes a lingering glance from an older couple. He flushes—he recognizes the disapproval in their look, bigotry he has seen before when he accompanies human acquaintances in public.

"Not too many choices," he hears Nyota say, and he makes the motion his cousin Anna taught him long ago to denote indifference.

Nyota looks at her menu and sighs.

Keeping his expression as neutral as possible, he replays the scene in the office again, trying to parse out how much he gave away when he touched her—

He saw her falling and reacted without thinking—his shields down, his feelings unfiltered…

They order and sit in silence for several minutes.

Nyota's discomfort is palpable when she speaks at last.

"So," she says, adjusting the volume of her voice to match the small room, "Your friends? Are they from Vulcan?"

How does he sum up what T'Pring is to him? And he to her?

"Only one is a…friend," he says, hearing the evasion in his own voice. "She is traveling with a study group."

"Oh!" Nyota says, sounding surprised. "When are you going to see them? Didn't you say they were here now?"

"They leave tomorrow evening," Spock says. Saying it out loud makes him angrier about the missed calls. "I have not contacted them yet about a possible rendezvous."

She seems as surprised as he feels and says as much.

"I called them before we came to lunch but could not get through," he says. "I will call when we return from our meal."

He senses Nyota shifting almost imperceptibly in her chair, something she does when she is getting ready to ask a difficult question. He stiffens slightly, waiting.

"Where are they anyway? Your _friend,_ I mean."

Almost frantically he shifts through his memory of touching Nyota in the office. Had he let slip anything about T'Pring? Bad enough that Nyota may have sensed his confusion about her—but his relationship with T'Pring is too painful to share with anyone.

"The group is in New York right now. This is the last leg of an extended tour."

"And they leave tomorrow?"

"As I said."

"Then why don't you just go there? Surprise her. I mean," Nyota says, "New York is only fifteen minutes away by shuttle. You could take the afternoon off—I don't have any tutorials scheduled. That is, if you want to."

Her suggestion takes him aback.

Going unannounced would never have occurred to him.

But more than that, he is startled that Nyota suggests it.

There are two possibilities.

She does not know about his feelings.

Or she knows that his feelings for her are…inappropriate, and she does not share them.

Either way, the proof of her indifference is in her suggestion that he seek out other company.

The waiter appears at last, setting their plates down in front of them and refreshing their drinks.

"Commander," she says, and he feels himself hoping that she will disprove his deduction, "really, if you are worried about the lab, I have it covered. That is, if you want to catch the shuttle to New York."

It's clear then. What he picked up from her when they touched was nothing more than regard or friendship.

For a moment Spock looks at her and feels himself coming unmoored, a ship drifting out to sea.

"Cadet Uhura," he says at last, "I appreciate your concern, but I assure you, it is not in my nature to, as you said, _just go there_. I will call again shortly and make arrangements then."

"But what if you can't get through? You might—Look," she says, her voice becoming businesslike and practical, "I know that the logical thing to do is to wait until you can get someone to answer before you take off for New York. But maybe you should set logic aside this time. Do what is spontaneous instead of what is thought out."

From anyone else, these comments would be…insulting. From her…he struggles not to show how amusing she sounds.

"And don't give me that look," she says, laughing. "Sometimes the best things in life are the things we don't plan for."

Indeed. And the worst things, too.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean to get so preachy. It's just—"

Listening to her stammer to a halt, he realizes that she is waiting for something.

"You are hardly a model of spontaneity," he says, trying to communicate friendliness. If all they can be is friends, then he has to start now. "You never missed a deadline in either of the courses you took under me, nor can I recall any time since you became my aide that you have asked to change your schedule."

A human adjective he has never understood comes to him unbidden— _broken-hearted._ If he has to describe what he feels now, it is just that. _Broken-hearted_. He looks at Nyota's face and listens to the light syllables leaping from her.

"Your urging me to fly to New York is out of character for you. Perhaps you simply want the rest of the afternoon unencumbered by my presence."

He tries to sound _light-hearted_ , and she replies, "Ah, Commander, you don't know me as well as you think you do."

She waits a beat and then asks, "What time is it," and he answers immediately.

"1437. And 13 seconds."

Stifling her laughter, she pulls out her comm, thumbs through several screens, and says, "Ah ha! Here you go."

She holds it up for him to see.

"There's a shuttle leaving for New York in twenty minutes. You could buy a ticket right now."

If he had any doubt before, he has none now. She's asking him to put aside whatever they shared in that moment in the office.

She beckons with the comm. After a pause he lifts it from her palm, careful not to touch her again.

He can be in New York in less than an hour.

Or he can stay here.

He feels the water closing over his head.

He hits the button and orders a seat on the transport.


	8. Asenoi

**Chapter Eight: _Asenoi_**

**Disclaimer: I did not create these characters, just the mischief they find themselves in.**

"There's something you don't see everyday," Gaila says, both elbows crooked and leaning on the long cafeteria table, her chin propped in her hands.

"What?" Nyota says idly, barely glancing up from reading the PADD on the table. With one hand she reaches into a bowl and picks up another strawberry.

"Commander Spock getting breakfast," Gaila says, sitting up and motioning across the crowded room.

Nyota looks up immediately but doesn't see him. Students are milling about, most taking trays from the serving line to tables, others gathered in the center of the room around a station that includes cold cereals and beverages.

"Where?" she says, tipping her chair back so she can see around a large group of rowers just coming back from practice. "I thought he'd still be in New York—"

"Oooh," Gaila says silkily, looking past Nyota's shoulder, "are you coming to see me?"

Before she sees him, Nyota hears Jim Kirk behind her.

"I'm always coming to see you," he says, sliding into a chair beside Nyota. Gaila gives him a bright smile; Nyota turns and frowns.

"What do you want?" Nyota says, and to her annoyance, he flashes his trademark grin.

"That's what I like," he says, "a woman who gets down to business."

Gaila laughs as Jim raises his eyebrows and leers.

"Actually," he says, making eye contact with Gaila but leaning toward Nyota, "I came to ask a favor."

"If it's about the Kobayashi Maru, you can quit asking—"

"But I _need_ you," Jim says, putting his hand on Nyota's shoulder. "I have everyone else lined up—"

"I don't have time," she says, shrugging him off. She looks across the distance but still doesn't see Spock.

"Why?" Jim says, reaching across the table and slipping his fingers into Gaila's hand. "I never see you out doing anything."

"Because," she says, "you aren't looking in the right places. Now go away and let me eat my breakfast in peace."

She hears the scrape of the chair as Jim stands up.

"I'm not taking no for an answer."

"You'll have to," she says, grinning in spite of herself.

Pointing to Gaila, he says,"I'll see _you_ later." He strides away and is soon swallowed up in the crowd.

"He's gone," Gaila says, and Nyota replies, "Thank goodness."

"No," Gaila says, "I mean Commander Spock. He was right there."

Nyota looks over her shoulder and then glances back at her roommate, strangely disappointed. She's never seen Spock in the cafeteria this early in the morning—in fact, he rarely eats here at all.

"He doesn't like…people," she says. She senses Gaila giving her an odd look and she hastens to add, "I mean, I think crowds bother him. The noise…or something."

At some level she feels disloyal for saying this out loud—this implied criticism.

As she gathers up her PADD and repacks her backpack, she sifts through a medley of feelings—an odd sense of loss that she missed him just now, coupled with surprise that he is here. And if she is honest, relief, too, that he didn't stay long in New York. Didn't he say his friends—no, _friend_ —was leaving today?

Her morning class is her most challenging one this semester, a neuroscience seminar populated primarily by cadets on the medical track, most who have taken far more physiology and biology classes than she has. She's holding her own— _doing well_ , she knows Professor Sanford would say—but only because she is working extra hard at it.

Not that she doesn't work equally hard in her other classes—but learning the theories behind cell regeneration and neuronal migration is not as—elegant—to her as learning the nuances of linguistics.

Usually the difficulty of the material keeps her focused, and the size of the class—only 12 students—makes her almost hyper-vigilant in discussions, but today her mind drifts. Vaguely she hears the other students talking about the results of a research project from Diamtra'Urelia that had captured her attention when she read about it several days ago.

Today she isn't interested.

Before she knows it, the dismissal bell rings and Professor Sanford's teaching assistant stops her near the door to ask if she is okay.

"Oh, yes," she says, embarrassed that her inattention is obvious. "I just have a lot on my mind."

The TA gives her a skeptical look but says nothing else.

Outside, the gray clouds hover close to the ground. The paved pathways that crisscross the campus are dark and damp—and for a moment Nyota pauses at an intersection and considers whether to head to the cafeteria for a quick lunch. A distant rumble of thunder settles her mind—she veers to the left toward the language building instead.

Didn't she leave part of a sandwich in the cooler yesterday? One she had brought for lunch but never ate?

The small diner where she and Spock had eaten flashes in her mind. What a strange meal that had been—awkward beyond measure after that odd…thing…that happened in the office.

The longer she ponders that moment—feeling her ankle give way, Spock's arms breaking her fall—the less sure she is about it.

A small group of students are walking up the steps to the front door and Nyota greets one by name—they stand aside for a moment, chatting, while the others press on through the glass door. When she turns to go inside, she is startled to see Spock standing there with the door open, his hand on the pull.

The other student nods quickly at him and hurries past.

"Commander!" she says, and he inclines his head. "Are you leaving?"

"Indeed," he says. "I have an errand to run in town. I should be back within the hour."

His face is a mask—she rarely sees him this controlled. More often he gives himself away with a lift of an eyebrow, a twitch of the cheek. In the overcast light his eyes look black and opaque.

"Is your office unlocked?"

"I was not expecting you," he says, stepping back a fraction so she can walk past.

Darting a glance at his impenetrable gaze, she says, "I'm sorry. I'm early."

"No apology needed," he says. One hand grips his other wrist behind his back as he walks slightly ahead of her toward the stairwell.

"I can come back later if that's easier," she says, and he pauses on the first step and turns to look at her.

Standing like that, he towers over her. For a moment they are motionless, and then he steps down. She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

"If you wish," he says, and then he tilts his head. "Or perhaps you would care to join me. I am going to the ceramics gallery on Kober Street."

The ceramics gallery! If he had said he was taking a shuttle to the moon for the afternoon she would not have been as surprised.

"I didn't know you were an art lover," she says, smiling as he touches her sleeve gently to shepherd her to the door. She looks down as he does and flushes. _I guess I'm going on the errand_ , she thinks.

Saying nothing as they make their way to the west gate, Spock looks up once as distant thunder shakes the ground.

"You may regret your decision to walk with me," he says.

"I've been wet before," she says, laughing. Her difficulty in reading him seems to be receding as they walk side by side down the walkway.

"And you may be again," he says as another peal of thunder rumbles.

Despite the threat of rain, they do not hurry. When they turn onto Kober Street, Nyota pauses at a large window of an independent art gallery to admire a small abstract painting and Spock stands, his hands behind his back, seemingly willing to wait as long as she wants.

"Vulcans are not art lovers in the sense that humans are."

He does this sometimes—sets aside a question she has asked and then pulls out the answer so much later that she has stopped looking for a response. It never fails to surprise her—but it pleases her, too, that he takes such care to consider what he wants to say.

"What do you mean?"

"Humans enjoy art not only for its aesthetics," Spock says, slowing his walk to let her catch up, "but because they assign value to individual pieces. It has, therefore, an economic metric that sets it apart from the ordinary. Human art lovers are often art collectors—not because they have an appreciation for its artistic qualities, but because they get pleasure from owning something with economic value."

Something about his description annoys her—it is too simple, or dismissive.

"And Vulcans don't? Put a monetary value on art?"

"They do," he says, "but that is not the primary reason they own it."

He stops suddenly and Nyota realizes that they are standing outside the ceramics gallery.

"Then why _do_ they own it?"

Her voice sounds defiant in a way that she doesn't really mean—she isn't trying to be argumentative.

"Because they need it," Spock says, pushing open the door.

The ceramics gallery is a marvel of colors and shapes. Recessed spotlights in the ceiling pull certain pieces into focus. Some are clearly practical—vases and bowls—while others are swirls of blown glass, bent or stretched into flattened ovals or large, solid bricks.

They amble along one wall of the shop slowly, and then Spock resumes their conversation.

"For instance," he says, "in Vulcan meditation, a traditional focal implement is a firepot. Its...beauty… is less important than its functionality."

"Is that what you are here to buy? A firepot?"

She moves to a table with large thrown pots and a few glass bowls. Without answering her, Spock picks up one of the clay pots and tests its weight by shifting it up and down before turning it slowly in his hands.

"As you surmised," he says at last, putting down the pot and walking to another table.

"This one," Nyota says, stepping around him and reaching out gently to touch a dark brown glazed pot as large as a jack-o-lantern and pleasantly misshapen.

Spock tips his head and stands still.

"Agreed," he says after another moment. He motions to the receptionist who scurries to the rear of the store and comes back with packing materials and a box.

"How exactly does this work?" Nyota asks as they make their way back up the street toward the campus, Spock holding the box under one arm. "Do you use candles, or incense?"

"Sometimes," Spock says, glancing down at her. "But neither are necessary. The object itself is not important—what it forces us to do _is_. From long habit, simply looking at a familiar firepot is enough to induce mindfulness—it is quite restful."

They walk in comfortable silence for a few moments and Nyota asks, "How did you meditate before you got one?"

Again he turns and looks down at her, and Nyota has the distinct impression that he is surprised at her question.

"I had one," he says, "but it…broke."

Something in his tone warns her from pursuing the issue further.

"I wasn't expecting you," she says, broaching her real concern, "to come back so soon. From New York. I thought you might stay over."

He says nothing as they turn the corner and head down the street that leads to the west gate of the Academy. The tallest of the dorms is shrouded by clouds, and a wet wind is blowing from the bay. Nyota crosses her arms against the chill.

She tries again.

"Did you see your friends? Did you have any trouble finding them?"

"I found them," Spock says, shifting the box to his other arm. They pause briefly to wait for the traffic light to change, and then they step off the curb together and pass through the gate on the other side of the street.

"And? How were they?"

Suddenly Nyota is aware how intrusive she sounds, and she backpedals quickly.

"I mean, I feel responsible. I did talk you into going."

At that, Spock looks her in the eye and she grows uncomfortable under his steady gaze. With a little shrug, she laughs.

As they start up the steps of the language building she casts about for something to say.

"While you were in New York," she says, "you should have gone to one of the big galleries there and gotten a really fancy firepot. I'll bet you could have found something special there."

Shifting the box once again, Spock pulls on the metal bar of the glass entrance door and takes a step back to let Nyota pass.

"I found something special here," he says.

X X X X X X X X X X

Chess is one of the few things that Vulcans acknowledge borrowing from Terra. After first contact, the game swiftly evolved into what it is now—a three-dimensional strategy game that relies as much on mathematical calculations as it does on gifted foresight.

"An irony," Truvik said the first time Spock wandered into his office and bent respectfully over the ancient chess board set up on a side table, "that a game dedicated to war should become such a valued pastime for a people of peace."

Spock was uncertain how to respond. _A people of peace_. The catcalls of his chief tormentor had driven him here inside the school building while the other boys exercised outside or devised makeshift games during the interim break.

"Are you interested in chess?" Truvik asked, and Spock nodded and looked up at the aged teacher. Truvik's face was deeply lined, his back bowed with degenerative bone disease. In his hand he kept a walking cane, though he rarely left his office or his classroom next to it.

"Then sit," he instructed, pointing with his cane to a tall three-legged stool near the door.

Pulling it to the side table, Spock perched and waited for Truvik to continue.

"Tell me what you know," he said, and Spock told him about the lessons his father had given him—basic information about how the different pieces moved and some simple strategies.

"Beyond that," Spock admitted, "I know nothing."

Truvik nodded and said, "An auspicious beginning. It is always best to admit what one does not know."

The first game was short—Truvik checkmated Spock in three swift moves.

The next day Truvik beat him in two.

For a week Spock stayed away.

When he returned, Truvik said nothing until Spock began pulling the stool toward the board.

"Leave that," he said. "Sit here, by me."

He waved his hand toward a flat, smooth stone on the ground. Spock looked up quizzically.

"A meditation stone?"

"Sit," Truvik said, his voice surprisingly strong for someone his age. "You cannot master the game until you master yourself."

Spock felt a spike of impatience. Suddenly Truvik's office felt less like a refuge and more like his study at home where his father gave him lengthy tutorials on the value of control.

But he sat. And tried not to frown.

"Keep your eyes on the _asenoi_ ," Truvik instructed, reaching to the shelf beside him and lifting down a small, clear firepot. He placed it in a tabletop tripod and sat back for a moment, considering it, Spock watching his face the whole time.

Turning the firepot until it satisfied him, Truvik picked up a fire starter and flicked the button with his thumb.

"Our oldest poetry uses fire as a symbol of our greatest passions," Truvik said, lighting the fuel cell inside the firepot and putting the fire starter back on the shelf. "Have you studied the works of T'Quir? Or Kohlar?"

When Spock shook his head, Truvik pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"You may be too young to have read them," he said, making one more adjustment of the firepot. "But you will, one day. If you are fortunate, the poetry will tell you nothing that you haven't already discovered for yourself."

At this, Spock was confused, though he knew it would be impolite to say so. He waited for a further explanation, but none came. Instead, Truvik sat staring at the little firepot.

"Teacher—" he said, but Truvik gave him a look that silenced him.

Knowing that he had been scolded, Spock did not move again until the chime signaled the end of the interim break. Even then, he was tentative.

"May I—" he said, and Truvik nodded his dismissal.

He might not have gone back to Truvik's office if the normal tormenting had continued—the verbal insults muttered more as asides than confrontations, not easy to ignore, but possible.

But at the next morning assembly, the lead teacher called out Spock for special recognition—an essay he had written detailing the results of his survey of some geologic formations near his home had been accepted for publication in a scholarly journal—not unheard of for students in his grade, but still rare.

The bullying ratcheted up immediately.

"Sit," Truvik said when Spock sidled into his office two days later. The firepot was already lit, the stone on the floor uncovered. He sat—not without resentment—and took a breath.

The window in Truvik's office was open—a slight breeze ruffled some papers on the table.

For seven-point-four minutes he sat silently, listening to the slight noise, watching the flames lick the top of the _asenoi_.

"Why do you want to learn to play chess?" Truvik asked at last.

Why did he want to learn? Spock wasn't sure. Because his father had taught him enough to make it interesting—that was part of it. But something else, too, that he couldn't quite name. He leaned forward until his elbows touched his thighs and his chin was resting on his fists.

Glancing up, he realized that Truvik was waiting.

"Because," he stalled, "it teaches valuable skills—"

A sound escaped from Truvik, a breath or a huff, Spock wasn't sure which.

"Go now," Truvik said abruptly. "Don't come back before you know why you want to learn."

Startled by the turn of events, Spock stood up slowly.

"Teacher?"

Truvik shook his cane in Spock's direction without looking at him. A dismissal. Clearly.

For two weeks he found other activities during the interim break. Once he walked the roundabout path to a large pond in the back of the school property and looked for fresh water shells on the bank. Another time he found an empty computer terminal and experimented with humor, sending a message to his cousin Rachel— _Thank you for writing. This electronic mailman isn't as fascinating as the actual one_.

When he finally went back to Truvik's office, the elder seemed unsurprised to see him.

"What have you discovered?" he asked as Spock positioned himself on the meditation stone.

To his astonishment, Spock realized that he knew the answer.

"I want," Spock said, "to win."

"What you _want_ ," Truvik amended, "is mastery over your opponent. What you _need_ ," he continued, "is mastery over yourself."

They alternated days, playing chess one day and lighting the firepot the next. At first Spock was impatient on the days when Truvik expected him to sit quietly, emptying his mind, listening to the smallest sounds, motionless. Bored.

But he did it so that he could have a chess lesson on the other days.

Spock's first real lesson improved his game immediately. Truvik showed him an elementary double level maneuver that had the advantage of deceptive simplicity.

"This is the first move most chess masters learned as young children," Truvik said. "Because they have moved beyond it, they expect no one else to use it."

That evening after helping his parents clean up from their meal, he asked his father to play a game with him. Sarek accepted at once, though Spock could sense his mother's anxiety. Why she should worry, he had no clue.

He lost that game—and while he was disappointed, he was also secretly pleased that the maneuver he had learned from Truvik cost Sarek four key pieces and extended the game three times as long as any game they had played before. Through their bond, Spock felt his father's conflicted displeasure at having to struggle so hard to beat his son and his pride, too, that Spock could put up such resistance.

At school the boy who had bedeviled him the most—the one who stepped out in front of him to stop him from passing, or who shoved against him when they met in a corridor—fell ill and was sent to the medical facilities in Kir for several weeks, and Spock experienced a respite of sorts. Not that the other boys welcomed him or were even friendly—indeed, they pointedly ignored him. Yet he stopped waking in the middle of night. He started finishing his meals.

If Truvik noticed a change, he didn't comment on it. But he gave Spock more complex moves to learn—sometimes meeting with him after school as well as during the break time.

"You fell into my trap again," Truvik said one day as Spock realized belatedly that his knight had been captured in a level change. "If you ignore the dangers from below, you will continue to lose."

As he conceded defeat to Truvik, he felt a flash of anger—something new. He had yet to beat Truvik at a game, so he was used to losing. In fact, he expected to lose. Why the anger now?

His tormentor was back at school.

Spock did not allow himself to say or think the name of his tormentor. Stripping him of his personhood—his name—was pleasing somehow.

"This boy," Truvik said one day as they set up the board, "who singles you out for his attention—who is he?"

Spock flushed furiously and considered.

"One of the students in the older class," he hedged, hoping Truvik would not ask him to be more specific. Saying the boy's name would be a defeat of sorts.

Truvik said no more about it then, but later as he practiced his _ka'athyra_ before settling himself for the night, Spock realized that Truvik's question meant that he knew about the bullying. Certainly Spock had never said anything. Had Truvik witnessed it, or had someone else told him?

The idea that his tormentor had a wider audience than he had imagined bothered Spock almost as much as the bullying itself.

The next time he had a match with Truvik, Spock nearly won.

"Know your opponent's weakness," Truvik said approvingly. "You have been observant. I generally lead with my rook—and you took advantage of that tendency."

Before Spock had time to feel proud, Truvik added, "But I will be more careful in the future."

When Spock's instructors selected him to represent the school in the district mathematics symposium, the bullying changed from mutterings and shoves to unobserved acts of sabotage.

His _aluk_ biosphere, recently rebuilt and restocked, was smashed, the water leaking onto the biological sciences lab floor, the small silver fish scattered across the tiles.

Twice his personal PADD disappeared from his storage cubicle.

"This move is called _the silent assassin_ ," Truvik said, showing Spock a way to divert an opponent's attention while laying a trap on a different level. "Because it depends on surprise to work, use it sparingly."

They were in Truvik's office as usual, though long after the other students had left for the day. In 23 days Spock was scheduled to compete in his first chess match, an open regional tournament. In the past few weeks Spock had started winning as many games as he lost against his teacher. When he played his father, he almost always beat him.

"Expect your opponent to know the same strategies you employ," Truvik said as Spock replaced the chess pieces on the board. "He may try to use them against you first."

As Spock picked up his satchel and headed to the door, Truvik called out, "If he does, the same moves may work against him if you retaliate before he realizes what you are doing."

Spock was beginning his second round of astrophysics review the next day when he heard the shouting. The boy—the nameless tormentor—stood at the top of the learning bowl.

"You did this!" the boy said, holding up his PADD.

Flicking off the projector in the bowl, Spock drained his face of any expression and looked up.

"Explain."

"My research project," the boy said, not bothering to hide his fury. "You substituted the numbers in the equations and changed all of the results. All my work is ruined!"

By then a teacher and several other students were standing near the boy, the teacher speaking to him softly.

"Because I know he did!" the boy replied with obvious anger to the teacher. Spock noted the looks of unease and yes, disgust, on the faces of the other students. The boy's unseemly outburst was…gratifying.

At the regional chess match Spock performed so well that he advanced to the district competition. Truvik stepped up the pace of the practice sessions. He pulled out the _asenoi_ only once every three days, and then once every seven, and finally not at all.

On one hand, it was a relief. He could spend his free time focused on the game.

On the other hand, the bullying became more focused, too—almost as if his tormentors were perfecting their game. The muttered name-calling became open and unabashed—with the added shame of other students gathering to watch.

"Since you have trouble with numbers," Spock said one afternoon as a small crowd overheard the tormentor calling Spock by name, "I will attempt to help you. This is the thirty-fourth attempt you have made to elicit an emotional response from me."

In the corner of his eye he saw a student react—a girl in the same class as the tormentor. She did not smile—nor did she make any noise—but Spock sensed her amusement.

The tormentor shot her a look. So he had sensed it, too.

_Know your opponent's weakness._

"The transports are here," a teacher called out, and the children moved slowly away.

The tormentor and his friends did as well, but Spock gathered his books and headed to Truvik's office.

The old teacher looked tired today, his face pinched with suppressed discomfort, his back bowed. When Spock entered his office, however, his expression lightened and he motioned to the stool already pulled up to the board.

"When you fight the king, you have to be ready to slay him," Truvik said. "When you have an advantage," he said, "you have to press forward or risk being wounded yourself."

The war language sounded incongruous coming from such a gentle man as Truvik. Spock looked over the board and picked up a pawn.

He beat Truvik in five moves.

The next day when the tormentor and his friends moved close after the dismissal chime, Spock said, "This is your thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from me."

_Because it depends on surprise to work, use it sparingly._

This time the tormentor kept his temper in check.

The taunts were familiar ones. The open shove was more of a surprise, but Spock caught himself before tumbling backward into a learning bowl.

"He's a traitor," the tormentor said. "Your father. For marrying her, a human whore."

The weeks of practice—centering himself before the _asenoi_ , taming his impatience. Gone.

Spock rushed forward.

He heard the tormentor fall heavily into the bottom of the bowl and he leaped without thinking, skating down the side. Before he had time to react, he felt his head snap backwards as the other boy connected his fist with Spock's jaw. He broke his fall with his hands and jumped up almost immediately.

For a moment he was locked in a struggle with the older boy, their arms tangled together, and he felt himself starting to tip over backwards.

_If you ignore the dangers from below, you will continue to lose._

Before he lost his momentum, Spock struck out his foot and tripped his tormentor, sending him sprawling. In a flash Spock straddled him.

_When you fight the king, you have to be ready to slay him._

The first strike was the hardest—Spock felt his knuckle split across the boy's front teeth. His second swing hit his cheek so hard that he felt it give way, a sickening spongy feeling. Behind him he could hear the other students calling to the teachers—and in a moment he felt arms pulling him up and off.

The district competition—that would be out of the question, he thought as he waited for his father. Truvik's disappointment would be the worst part—and his mother's anger. His father—

But Sarek was surprisingly sanguine, and while his mother was certainly angry, she wasn't upset with _him_. It was quite surprising.

Most surprising of all of was Truvik's reaction. When Spock went to answer the door chime that night after the evening meal, there was his teacher, bent over as usual, leaning heavily on his cane.

"I came to tell you," the teacher said, a definite twinkle in his eye, "that your instructors have voted to allow you to represent the school at the district championship next week. That is, if you still want to go."

X X X X X X X X X

The shuttle flight to New York is 14.24 minutes long. For the first half of the flight he thinks about T'Pring—making a note of the hotel where she and her travel group are staying, correlating his arrival time with the likelihood of finding anyone there. By this leg of their trip, most of the scheduled sites would have been visited. He can't even begin to calculate what else they might have planned to do while in the city.

For the last half of the flight he thinks about what he saw as he entered the terminal. After he ordered his ticket on Nyota's comm at the restaurant, they quickly paid their bill and Nyota had offered to walk with him to the transport station—it was, she pointed out, a simple detour back to the Academy anyway.

The meal had been awkward enough—his mind furiously speeding through multiple images of the fall in the office—and he wanted to have time to think without being distracted by her presence.

But he heard himself agreeing to her suggestion—almost as if from a distance, listening to a stranger speaking with his voice.

She had been chatty and upbeat, a relief in one way. She must not have picked up as much from him as he had from her—perhaps nothing.

Friendship—or at least, friendliness—might be possible after all.

After he told her goodbye and stepped through the door into the transport station, he watched her through the window give a wave, smile broadly, and then turn to head down the avenue to the Academy.

All as it should be—except…he caught a glimpse of her expression as she walked away—her smile falling from her features so swiftly that its earlier presence was clearly a pretense, her brows knit into a frown, her shoulders hunched slightly as if she were walking into a cold wind.

He is still pondering the meaning when the shuttle lands in New York.

Finding T'Pring's hotel is a simple matter. It is a logical choice—close to the interplanetary transport terminal yet near enough to many of the architectural artifacts the Vulcans had come to tour. When Spock requests T'Pring's room number he is surprised that the receptionist asks for no identification and offers it readily. Perhaps her father told her he might visit. If so, she may have instructed the staff to look for him.

On the lift up he closes his eyes and reaches out for any sense of her—but as it has been since he left Vulcan for the Academy, her presence is faint—like a candle behind a heavy curtain. If she feels him searching for her, he can't tell.

The lift judders to a stop and he opens his eyes. T'Pring's room is at the end of the corridor, and walking toward it, Spock feels his heartbeat thrumming in his throat.

For a moment he stands in front of her door, waiting for his breath to steady.

Before he can press the chime, the door opens.

"Spock."

Although Spock has not seen him since their school days, he recognizes him immediately.

"Stonn."

Saying his name aloud—something he has never done before—feels like a door closing somewhere.

As startled as Spock is to find any man in T'Pring's room, the odds of finding Stonn here are…incalculable.

_If you ignore the dangers from below, you will continue to lose._

"T'Pring," Spock says after a moment. Stonn inclines his head marginally but does not step out of the doorway.

"Unavailable," Stonn says, a note of something—triumph, pride?—in his voice. "I will tell her you were here when she returns."

Stonn's dismissal is unmistakable.

His hands around his throat—pressing him to the ground, beating his nose flat—the satisfying feel of cheekbone giving way—Spock sees all of this and more in an instant.

It had worked once—Stonn's tormenting had stopped.

_If you do battle with the king, you have to be ready to slay him._

From the end of the hall Spock hears a room door snick open and a human couple amble out.

His career at Starfleet—the life he has started building for himself—over, if he acts.

There is Stonn, waiting.

Spock turns on his heel and walks back towards the lift. The human couple reaches it as he does. The man, short and of Asian ancestry, eyes Spock warily and defers to him as he reaches forward to press the call button. His anger then, is clear for everyone to see.

Sitting for an hour in the terminal before catching a shuttle back to San Francisco, Spock sees little and hears less. The flight, too, is a blur. The next thing he remembers clearly is opening the door to his apartment, flicking up the heat controls to banish the damp, pulling his meditation robe from the dresser drawer and lighting the _asenoi_ his father had given him on his 15th birthday.

Meditation is useless, and after an hour he abandons the attempt, scavenging a quick meal from his cooler instead and pacing through the apartment afterward.

T'Pring's silence—and Stonn's presence. Spock's thoughts circle these two ideas relentlessly.

Lighting the _asenoi_ again and sitting cross-legged before it—

_Your opponent may use your strategies against you first._

The _asenoi_ shatters from a single blow. The incense bar scatters into embers across the carpet and Spock pounds them out with his fists. A sudden thump on the wall—his next-door neighbor protesting the noise.

He has to regain some control.

A real meal, then, and work. The Academy cafeteria is already open so he slips on his uniform and heads there.

Even before he enters he recoils slightly at the noise—students talking, the clank of dishes, a sudden piercing laugh.

Despite a recent recruiting effort to garner more non-Terrans, most of the students at the Academy are humans. When he enters the cafeteria Spock does what he always does—scans the crowd for any non-humans there—a quick, almost unconscious tally. This morning his eye picks out Cadet Farlijah-Endef—and across from her, Nyota.

Nyota is reading, as she often does, while she eats—her PADD propped on the table, her fingers trailing into a bowl of strawberries. Her roommate appears to have finished her meal. Perhaps she will leave soon.

He moves to the counter stocked with yogurt and cereals and makes his selection. If he sits with her he might be able to find a measure of calm before he heads to the office. Picking up his tray, he starts to make his way across the crowded floor.

A group of rowers, flushed from their early morning practice on the bay, interrupt his progress and he stands and waits for them to pass. As he does, he notices that a young man has slipped into the chair beside Nyota.

Suddenly feeling foolish, he turns around and sweeps the contents of the tray into the trash bin near the exit door. _Wasting food this way_ …but he isn't hungry.

At the office he is equally restless, checking his mail and both hopeful and fearful that he will have a message from T'Pring. Nothing. An image of his smashed firepot comes to mind.

A stupid lapse.

On his computer he calls up the closest place to replace the firepot, a ceramics gallery a short walk up Kober Street. Repressing a sigh, he locks up his office and heads down the stairwell.

"Commander!" Nyota says as he pushes open the glass door to exit the building. "Are you leaving?"

"Indeed," he says. "I have an errand to run in town. I should be back within the hour."

He struggles to hide his distress, aware that she is looking at him closely. She starts to move past him.

"Is your office unlocked?"

"I was not expecting you," he says, stepping back a fraction to avoid brushing against her.

She also seems ill at ease, giving him a quick look. "I'm sorry. I'm early."

"No apology needed," he says. He thinks again about the expression on her face as she turned away at the terminal.

"I can come back later if that's easier," she says, and he pauses on the first step and turns to look at her.

Standing like that, he towers over her. For a moment they are motionless, and then he steps down. He hears her sigh—a measure of her discomfort, surely. The touch in the office—the confusing touch that has made them awkward with each other.

"If you wish," he says, and then he tilts his head. "Or perhaps you would care to join me. I am going to the ceramics gallery on Kober Street."

"I didn't know you were an art lover," she says, smiling as he carefully touches her sleeve instead of her hand to motion her forward.

Saying nothing as they make their way to the west gate, Spock looks up once as distant thunder shakes the ground.

"You may regret your decision to walk with me," he says.

"I've been wet before," she says, laughing. Her shoulders loosen as they walk together, her posture becoming more relaxed. Spock glances at her—her hair pulled back with a silver clip, her dark eyes taking in everything around them. Friendship, he thinks, would feel like this—a comfortable walk down an interesting street.

"And you may be again," he says as another peal of thunder rumbles.

At the corner of Kober Street Nyota pauses before a large picture window and examines the artwork inside. Spock amuses himself by trying to predict which painting has captured her attention—and is inordinately pleased that he is right. She points to a small abstract canvas that also catches his eye.

They speak for a few moments about art—its monetary versus its aesthetic value, and he sees her frown. Something he has said has upset her, though he cannot imagine what.

"And Vulcans don't?" she says, her brows furrowed. "Put a monetary value on art?"

So, his contrast between human and Vulcan sensibilities has upset her. Tricky territory—and one that has tripped them up before. He thinks about his _ka'athyra_ —her confusion when he had cautioned her against touching it

"They do," he says, "but that is not the primary reason they own it."

At the entrance to the ceramics gallery he stops and she takes a step closer before saying, "Then why _do_ they own it?"

He pictures his firepot, in shards in the trash bin.

"Because they need it," Spock says, pushing open the door.

The ceramics gallery is exactly as he had imagined it would be—organized by some calculus that escapes him. Although some firepots are on one table, they are intermingled with other pieces that are functionless, or at least, are designed to be appreciated for their form or color and not for anything more practical.

Nyota appears to enjoy wandering among the different displays, and he walks slowly behind her, content to let her lead.

"For instance," he says, attempting to explain his earlier comment, "in Vulcan meditation, a traditional focal implement is a firepot. Its...beauty… is less important than its functionality."

"Is that what you are here to buy? A firepot?"

As always, he is delighted with her insight. He watches her move to a table with large thrown pots and a few glass bowls. Without answering her, Spock picks up one of the clay pots and tests its weight by shifting it up and down before turning it slowly in his hands.

"As you surmised," he says at last, putting down the pot and walking to another table.

"This one," Nyota says, stepping around him and reaching out gently to touch a dark brown glazed pot as large as a jack-o-lantern and pleasantly misshapen.

It will make an adequate replacement.

As they walk back to the Academy a few minutes later, he answers her questions—good ones—about his _asenoi_.

"From long habit, simply looking at a familiar firepot is enough to induce mindfulness—it is quite restful," he says.

Or so, it is in theory.

They walk in comfortable silence for a few moments and Nyota asks, "How did you meditate before you got one?"

This question is surprising—another example of what they don't know about each other.

"I had one," he says, "but it…broke."

He hopes she doesn't ask him to clarify, and to his relief, she changes the subject.

"I wasn't expecting you," she says, "to come back so soon. From New York. I thought you might stay over."

What should he say? He considers this as they turn the corner and head down the street that leads to the west gate of the Academy. The weather is gray and chilly—he raises his core temperature to counteract the wind from the bay. Nyota, he sees, is also cold, but he has no jacket to offer her.

"Did you see your friends? Did you have any trouble finding them?"

"I found them," Spock says, shifting the box with the _asenoi_ to his other arm. Pausing briefly for the traffic light to change, they step off the curb together and pass through the gate on the other side of the street.

"And? How were they? I mean, I feel responsible. I did talk you into going."

Something in her tone of voice alerts him that she is stressed. She _had_ talked him into going—or at least, had made going seem logical—and he had assumed that she wanted him to go.

Just as he had assumed that he must have been mistaken about what she felt as he caught her in his arms—

At that, Spock looks her in the eye and she shrugs and laughs.

They start up the steps of the language building and she says, "While you were in New York, you should have gone to one of the big galleries there and gotten a really fancy firepot. I'll bet you could have found something special there."

Shifting the box with the _asenoi_ to his other hand so he can open the door, Spock takes a step back to let Nyota pass. As she does, he catches her scent and feels a wave of longing that catches him by surprise.

"I found something special here," he says.

It is an unforgivable slip of the tongue.

His heart hammers in his side as he waits for her to protest.

But she walks on, apparently unaware of the _heartbreak_ in his words.

By the time they reach the first landing of the stairwell, he has already decided: tonight he will put the new firepot to good use, before he makes another mistake and loses everything.

 


	9. Emotion

**Chapter Nine: Emotion**

**Disclaimer: The usual suspects are not mine. Drats.**

As soon as the postmaster sees Nyota approaching, he slides the data pad across the counter and holds up a stylus. After six weeks—or is it seven?—she no longer has to show her ID to pick up Spock's mail.

Usually she retrieves flimplasts from scientists doing research with the Commander—projects as varied as marking the evolution of sentient bloodworms on Janus Sigma to designing an orbiting probe to collect cosmogenic nuclides in Earth's atmosphere.

The data could be sent digitally, of course—and much of it is—but researchers in remote parts of the quadrant also encrypt their findings on flimplasts as insurance against electronic degradation.

Today's mail is much smaller than a flimplast parcel. After she signs for delivery, Nyota picks up the package and smooths her fingers along the edges.

As long as her outstretched hand and as wide as her palm, the small rectangle feels oddly familiar. She tests its weight by tipping it backward and forward—and suddenly she knows.

_A book._

An actual bound book—an expensive rarity.

She glances at the return address and is startled to see the code for Vulcan.

As far as she knows, Spock is not currently working with anyone there. A package from home, then?

Or a gift from his _friend_?

The weather is one of those rare warm, dry mid-October San Francisco days that fools the unwary visitor into leaving his jacket behind. The quad is packed with students stretched on blankets or sitting cross-legged on the grass, faces tipped to the sun. A few are turned so their shoulders cast shadows over PADDs they pretend to read.

Although Nyota hears the greetings of several friends as she makes her way from the post office back to the language building, she barely acknowledges them. A glance, a hurried wave—normally she would pause for conversation, enjoying the afternoon light. Today the book in her hand freights her with heavier concerns.

It is none of her business, of course.

But a _book_.

The things she does not know about Vulcans—she would be able to find in their books; their secret, private depositories of information they want no one else to see.

At least, that's how it seems to her.

More than once recently she has tried to find out information…the ka'athyra, for instance—simple details about how it is made, how it is played. Near silence, or very little public data. An hour of searching yielded only a line drawing of a Vulcan lute, and that in imperfect detail.

If not digitized, such information must be available somewhere.

Books, perhaps, as rare as manuscripts illuminated by monks in medieval times on Earth. Single copies memorized and then passed on to a trusted few?

For a moment she considers opening the package—or rather, she imagines slipping the cover off and reading the Vulcan text on the title page, thumbing through to the index, noting the selections and choosing one for careful study, slowing her steps so that she will have time to read one poem or short story or medical treatise—whatever is in the book.

But she doesn't. Never would.

She walks on and grins at the idea of Vulcan poetry.

_A gift from the friend?_

The smile falls from her face.

Spock is not in his office when she arrives, breathing heavily from her run up the stairs. His door is open, however, so he must be nearby—in the lab or the break room, or even down the hall in Professor Artura's office. She places the package on his desk and walks across the room to the desk he has set up for her there, flipping on the computer and sliding into the chair.

She begins sorting Spock's emails first. As usual for the first of the week, he has quite a few. Today two are tagged as personal—one from Vulcan and another from the dean of the Academy. Setting those aside, she finishes her filing and is getting up to check on the lab when Spock appears in the doorway.

"Cadet Uhura," he says, nodding. She nods back and watches as he catches sight of the package on his desk. For a second she is hopeful that he will open it—but instead he looks past it to the stack of PADDs from his morning class.

"I'm finished with your mail and the filing," Nyota says, "if you want me to check quizzes."

Instead of answering, Spock pulls out the chair behind his desk and sits down, sliding a PADD toward him. His silence doesn't surprise her—if he had wanted her help he would have said so. Nyota waits a moment more and then starts to stand. The tutorial hours begin soon—she might as well check to make sure the lab is open.

"Oh," she adds, "I sent two tagged messages to your box."

At last he meets her gaze, and she is struck by how tired he looks. Not that he is untidy or unkempt, but something in his posture, in the way he curves his left arm around the PADD on the desk as if he is propping himself up, makes him seem less…formal…or almost…human.

"Would you care for some tea?"

His question catches her off guard and she blurts out, "Certainly. But let me make it."

His expression doesn't change, but she senses his—relief? He might be unwell—his color is off, his words quiet and soft.

In the break room she opens the canister and shakes the last of the Kenyan tea into the tea strainer. Taking a deep breath, she inhales the loamy scent of the tea and wonders again where Spock found it. She makes a mental note to tell him that the canister is empty.

When she returns to his office with two mugs of tea, he is reading the tagged mail—or so she assumes. Putting his mug on his desk, she starts to leave for the lab when he stops her.

"A note from my mother," he says, and she realizes that this is an invitation to sit. She slips into the chair nearest his desk, cradling her tea mug in her hands.

"She writes," he says, "that my father's surgery is scheduled for later this week."

"Surgery!"

This is the first Nyota has heard that Spock's father is ill. That explains Spock's odd look today—his thinly disguised exhaustion, his almost-physical discomfort.

"What kind of surgery?" she asks, and Spock takes a sip of his tea before answering.

"Repair to a heart valve," he says, meeting Nyota's gaze. The bright sunlight from the window lightens his eyes to the color of tea—an embarrassing observation that makes her feel shallow and intrusive. She refocuses on what he is saying.

"So," she stumbles, "you are going? To Vulcan?"

Another thought leaps into her mind unbidden—the _friend_? Will she be there?

But Spock doesn't seem to notice her distraction. He takes another sip of tea and says, "No. My schedule precludes that possibility."

"You can cancel your classes!"

Nyota's vehemence surprises even her.

Apparently Spock is surprised as well. He arches an eyebrow.

"My presence will not affect the outcome of the surgery," he says, and despite herself, Nyota huffs.

"But your mother! She might want your company!"

At once she realizes the fallacy of her argument—she knows nothing about Vulcan taboos concerning health and surgery. She is reacting as if her own father were facing surgery—naturally she would be there. Spock, however—

"My mother _would_ welcome my company," Spock says, the ghost of amusement playing around his lips. "As she reminds me quite often."

Something in his tone alerts her that the subject is closed. She looks down into her mug and gauges the amount of tea left. One more swig and she will head to the lab.

"The other notice," he says, " is from the dean. I need your…advice."

At once Nyota is on alert. A letter from the dean? It could be good news—or disastrous…a promotion or transfer to another department? Spock's status as an instructor in two areas—computers and language—has always been temporary. When the Vulcan language professor left last year, he agreed to fill in—and has stayed, despite his heavy schedule leading an artificial intelligence consortium.

If he is leaving the language department, will she lose her position as his aide?

That must be it.

She feels a rush of disappointment. The pay has been helpful; the work hours relatively light.

And spending time with Spock _—"My mother would welcome my company."_ Well, why not? He's good company.

He's—more than that.

All this flashes through her mind in an instant.

She breathes out and tries to smile.

"The Brodhead Prize—" he begins.

"You got it!" Nyota says, delight and giddiness born of relief hurrying her words. "I knew you would! When I saw that you were nominated—"

_Settle down_ , she thinks, hearing herself babbling on. He isn't leaving the department—he is being recognized for his excellence in teaching.

In one way this is a surprise—cadets outside of the field often complain that Spock is an inordinately demanding professor.

But his advanced students crowd his classes, grateful for his precision and detail, mindful of his willingness to work with them on their own research projects.

The Brodhead Prize is voted on by the cadets and awarded at the mid-term. He will have to prepare a lecture for his acceptance speech—the topic his choice. That must be the reason he wants her _advice_.

Yet twice today her intuition fails her.

"I do not intend to accept it," Spock says. "I am uncertain how to respond to the dean's notification—"

"You have to accept it!" Nyota says, stunned. "It would be…insulting….to refuse!"

At that Spock tilts his head and furrows his brow.

"Explain."

Turning in her chair to face him, Nyota says, "Because! Your students are recognizing your importance in their education. If you refuse the prize, you are telling them that their opinion doesn't matter."

"Their opinion does not matter," Spock says. "My teaching is not affected by what my students think of me."

For a moment Nyota is at a loss for words.

"But—" she starts, and then falters. Teaching isn't a one way road—the respect Spock has garnered from his students does matter—makes him a force in the field, a mentor for those looking for a challenge. If they didn't respect him—seek him out…

She feels a wave of sadness wash over her.

Is his vision of himself so bleak that he doesn't see how important he is—to his students, to his mother, his father?

To her?

"No," she says. She sees Spock react to her tone with a shift in his posture. "You have to accept it. You _have_ to. I know what you are going to say—"

She narrows her eyes and glares at him, daring him to speak. He pulls back fractionally and she presses forward.

"You are going to argue that you don't need an award to tell you what you already know—that you work hard and do your best to make things clear for your students—Stop! Don't say anything. You know it's true. You think awards and honors are for other people—people who need a pat on the back to keep going. That you don't need that."

She pauses to take a breath.

"And you are probably right. But what you aren't thinking about is that your students need to give you this award. They _need_ to. They don't have any other way to…thank you. So let them."

Her long tirade over, Nyota takes another breath and is suddenly sweaty. She feels a tendril of hair tickling her neck and she resists an impulse to flick it out of the way.

Spock says nothing. For a minute they sit in awkward silence, her eyes on his for a moment before looking away to her tea mug.

"Then I defer to your wisdom in this matter," he says at last, and she darts him a quick glance.

"I'm…sorry…I was so blunt," she stammers, forcing herself to meet his look. Something in his expression changes—becomes less cloudy, softens imperceptibly.

Later she tries to describe it to herself and fails.

"No apology needed," he says. "I value your…honesty."

She excuses herself soon after—already one student is standing impatiently at the lab door, waiting for her to unlock it. With relief she slips into the familiar routine, masking her twitchiness with purpose and motion.

For two hours she distracts herself this way, but eventually the last student leaves and she heads back to Spock's office. As she expected, he is not there—on Mondays he leaves before she does and keeps office hours in the computer science department.

The light is off but the door is unlocked—his concession that she might need something before locking up for the evening. When she walks in, the lights come up and she sees immediately that he has left his comm on his desk, a sign, she thinks, that she is not the only one feeling distracted this afternoon.

She hesitates before picking it up. He will need it—the alert light shows that he has messages waiting.

The computer science building is on the other side of the campus from her dorm, but Nyota steps out into the deepening twilight and crosses her arms and heads into the damp wind.

When she gets there she sees that the front door of the computer science building is locked—a sign on the door saying that repairs to the environmental controls will shutter everything after 5.

For a moment Nyota stands by the door, pirouetting slowly, considering her options.

She could take Spock's comm back to his office at the language building. He might, after all, come back for it.

Or she could walk a little further on toward the east side of the campus to the faculty housing where Spock lives.

Spock's comm in her pocket chimes softly—another missed message. The faculty housing, then. She tucks her head against the wind and lopes across the quad.

The apartment where many of the faculty members live is a nondescript block building. A busy road stretches beyond it, and further in the distance, Nyota can see the lights of the waterfront.

Before she presses the intercom at the door she shivers from the cold, or from nervousness—she isn't sure which.

"It's Uhura," she says when the indicator flashes. "You left your comm at the office. I have it."

Hearing the outside lock unlatch, she pushes the door open and looks for the apartment number. Spock's is the first one on the left, but before she can ring the bell, he opens the door.

When she steps up to the doorsill she feels a blast of heat coming from the apartment. For the first time since she has known him, Spock looks warm—his face flushed, his hair slightly matted and wet.

Most surprising is the way he is dressed, in a long black robe made of something heavy and visibly woven. Behind him the lights in the apartment appear muted, like candlelight.

The light from the hanging bulb in the hallway falls across Spock's face, giving his eyes the same intense color Nyota noticed earlier in the office. She shivers again.

"I have your comm," she says, stepping closer. She looks past him for a moment into the darkened apartment, but Spock doesn't move aside.

"As you said," he says so softly that she has to strain to hear him.

Rocking forward gently, she slips her hand into her pocket. His eyes follow her motion as she struggles to bring a measure of grace to what she is doing.

Her heartbeat is loud, filling her ears. When she pulls the comm from her pocket at last, she tips her palm up and lifts her gaze.

Spock is watching her so intensely that her breath catches.

His glance travels from her eyes to her mouth and along her throat. She steadies herself, lifting her chin, breathing out a sudden rush of air.

She feels the tide shifting, pulling her without visible motion toward a yearning moon.

From the corner of her eye she sees Spock's arm reaching toward her.

Down the hall a door opens and laughter spills out.

"Thank you," Spock says, his fingers barely brushing her palm as he folds them around his comm.

She nods briefly and moves back, blinking in embarrassment at misunderstanding his intentions.

Walking up the hall to the outside door, she listens for the sound of his door snapping shut—but her footsteps are too loud, and she forces herself to press forward, her hands pushing open the heavy door against the evening breeze, willing herself not to look back, certain that he is not still standing there in the doorway, framed by heat and dark, an unspoken supplication in his tea colored eyes.

X X X X X X X X

_Vulcans have no emotions_.

Of all the things humans think they know about Vulcans, this is the most entrenched.

Spock had always known this—had even known Vulcans who allowed the lie to go unchallenged, passively cultivating what they wished, perhaps, was true.

Even his own family—his human family—sometimes slipped up and made comments that were…if not hurtful, insensitive.

Not his cousins, of course. If anything, Chris and his two sisters were guilty of being color-blind, of ignoring his Vulcan heritage, of treating him as if his sensibilities and traditions were nothing more than odd peccadilloes or eccentric choices.

His dietary restrictions, for instance, were no stranger than that of many humans they knew. His distaste for violence—not unheard of. The other things—the slight lilt in his Standard that betrayed another language as his native tongue, the alien texture of his clothes—all those could be explained away as foreign characteristics—familiar in another land but exotic here.

He understood and did not mind. His cousins' acceptance—indeed, their blindness—was well-intentioned, even kind.

Not so the attitude of his grandmother.

Her disapproval of her daughter's choice of a husband was palpable. Although she never treated Spock with overt unkindness, she was not warm or loving, either, rarely speaking to him on one of his rare visits. Sarek almost never came with Amanda and Spock when they did stop by, usually for only a few minutes of stilted conversation.

"She is who she is," Amanda told him once, as if that were sufficient explanation. He did not ask his mother for more details.

So when his grandmother died, he felt nothing.

It was as if he had become the human idea of a Vulcan—indifferent to pain, devoid of care.

Through their bond he could sense his mother's distress—and more than that, her sorrow—not just from losing her mother but from losing what she _could_ have been.

It was very confusing.

The funeral was delayed to give Amanda sufficient travel time. To Spock's surprise, Sarek was insistent that they go together as a family—despite Amanda's willingness to go alone.

"Your mother needs us," Sarek told his son the night before they left for Earth, "and tradition and respect demand that we attend...even for someone as…difficult…as your grandmother."

Anna greeted them at the transport station with the family's ground car. A year older than Spock, at 17 Anna was almost as tall as he was, and nearly as dark. Her hair was cut in an asymmetrical bob that accented her sharp cheekbones. Except for Spock's upswept eyebrows, they could have passed for siblings—in fact, had more than once been questioned by new acquaintances.

"Has Chris already arrived?" Spock asked Anna as she navigated through the crowded streets near her family's house in Seattle. She shook her head and met Spock's eye in the rear view mirror.

"He's not coming," she said, shrugging. "Final exams. He couldn't reschedule them."

Sitting beside his father in the back seat, Spock felt Sarek tense.

"He will miss his grandmother's funeral?"

Spock was not surprised that his father disapproved. For Vulcans, ceremony was sometimes the best—the only—way to express the emotions they kept hidden behind layers of control. Without ceremonies—without the comfort of ritual and routine—life was chaos.

What did surprise Spock was that his father did not try to hide his disapproval. Anna, too, heard it. She glanced at Amanda in the front seat before saying, "I don't think he could get a shuttle. The Martian colony was quarantined several days this week and no one could leave—"

"There are always possibilities," Sarek said. The discussion was closed.

Although Chris had been away at the university on the Martian colony for two years, he was diligent about staying in touch. Spock felt a wave of disappointment that he would miss seeing him this visit.

His own plans, for instance—Spock had looked forward to talking to Chris about where he might apply for school next year. The Vulcan Science Academy—that went without saying. But he also wanted to ask what it was like to study so far from home. Did Chris find it difficult to be away from his family? Or was it a liberation, perhaps?

Cecilia's house was full of people. The funeral would actually be there tomorrow, in the back yard, loosely officiated by a rabbi and a Catholic priest who were both friends or distant relatives of her mother—Anna wasn't sure. The internment would be private, the family sprinkling the ashes in the rose garden before the other guests arrived.

Holding his and his parents' heavy luggage in front of him as a barrier, Spock pressed his way through the crowded foyer and went up the stairs to the guest room at the end of the hall.

"You're here!" he heard Rachel squeal. As she always did when she saw him, Rachel threw her arms around his waist and squeezed with exaggerated motions.

"Put those down," she commanded. "I want you to meet some people!"

Setting the luggage inside the door, Spock followed his younger cousin back up the hall to her own room, which, as far as he could tell, was full of girls Rachel's age. They looked up in unison when he walked in.

"That's your cousin? How's that possible?" a curly red-headed teenager said, wrinkling her nose. There it was—the way humans often talked about him as if he could feel no embarrassment or offense.

But Rachel ignored the speaker and addressed the crowd.

"This is Spock," she said. "Be nice! He came all the way from Vulcan today so he's really tired."

That was not, in fact, true. The trip had been easy enough and he was hardly tired. He said nothing, however. Rachel's comments might have not have been intended to be taken literally—the way human niceties were often less about information and more about, as his mother said, _greasing the wheels of social interactions_.

Abruptly Rachel spun about and said, "Come on, Spock, we have places to go and people to see."

As he followed her to the stairwell, Spock watched Rachel's long, dark curls bounce around her shoulders. Shorter than Anna and a year younger than Spock, Rachel habitually flounced when she walked and gesticulated broadly when she spoke. Her taking him to her room to _show him off_ was typical.

"You need something to eat," Rachel said over her shoulder, pushing open the kitchen door.

Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was crowded with neighbors and friends—not, Spock gathered, of his grandmother, but people who knew his mother and his aunt—many who had never met his grandmother. That they should be here the night before the funeral was baffling. He would have to ask his mother about it—or Anna, perhaps, who saw him trailing in Rachel's wake and moved quickly to intercept him.

"No, you don't," she said, and for a moment Spock was uncertain if she was speaking to him or to Rachel.

"He's hungry!" Rachel protested, and Anna raised one eyebrow, looked Spock in the eye, and said, "Are you?"

He shook his head and Rachel huffed loudly.

"No one's eating yet," Anna said, and Rachel huffed again.

"But all this food—"

Rachel waved her arm to include the counters and table covered with casseroles and pies, cakes and jugs of chilled fruit teas.

"You'll have to wait," Anna said, taking Spock by the elbow and herding him to the door leading outside.

The yard was less crowded than the house, though people stood talking in small groups or milling about Cecilia's large flowerbeds.

"You remember Lucy," Anna said. It was not a question.

Of course Spock remembered Lucy. Short and compact—with hair a different color every time he saw her—Lucy had been Anna's best friend all through high school. Last summer when Spock spent two weeks in Seattle, Lucy had been a frequent visitor at the house, sometimes staying for several days at a time.

"She has a crush on you," Anna had said then. His confusion must have been noticeable because she added, "You know—she likes you. She's…attracted to you."

"Do you mean _sexually_?" Spock asked, and Anna rolled her eyes.

"Don't act so surprised," Anna said. "I've seen you looking at her, too."

That _was_ the case. When Lucy was around, Spock did find himself looking at her—but from justified curiosity and nothing else. Last summer, for instance, her hair was dyed a bright, almost fluorescent blue. When Lucy moved a certain way, Spock could perceive a peculiar turquoise highlight—a fascinating interaction of the wavelengths on the color spectrum—

The night before he had left, Anna threw a farewell party—her parents giving their tacit permission though both had to work at the hospital that evening.

"No alcohol," Spock heard Anna's dad say on the speaker-phone in the kitchen.

"I don't have any," Anna said sweetly. Only later when her friends arrived with a cooler of beer did Spock realize how the truth could sometimes mask a lie.

"Does he drink?" a tall boy asked Anna, pulling a bottle from the ice in the cooler. "I mean, can he?"

Spock stiffened. He was only 2.3 meters away—surely the boy knew that he could hear him, could respond. _They have no feelings to hurt_ he had overheard a human woman say once as he and his mother ate in a restaurant. _You can tell by looking._

His mother had heard it, too—and to Spock's mortification, had stood up suddenly and marched to the nearby table, staring down at the startled speaker.

"I would advise you," Amanda said with as much venom as Spock had ever heard her use, "to speak only about things you know something about!"

She started to turn around and then seemed to think better of it, pivoting toward the seated woman again and adding, "But then you wouldn't have anything at all to say. A pity!"

Anna's glare at the party was almost as baleful. She grabbed the bottle of beer from the boy and handed it to Spock.

"Dope," Lucy said from behind him. "Don't listen to him."

That night Lucy's hair was almost black—an astonishing transformation that caught Spock by surprise when he turned around to face her.

"Come sit with me," Lucy said, and though Spock was seriously considering slipping away from the party to his room in the attic, he felt Anna watching him. An early getaway was not possible, then. He would have to wait until her attention was diverted.

"If you wish," he said, sitting opposite Lucy on a rickety garden bench that reclined against a tree for support.

Someone—Anna perhaps, or more likely, Rachel—had haphazardly strung several strands of Christmas lights in the yard. The effect was less festive than it might have been if more bulbs had been used. Spock automatically began calculating how much wattage would offer the optimum amount of light and atmosphere—and how many more strands of lights would be necessary—

And suddenly there was Lucy, almost in his lap.

He was so astonished that he dropped his unopened bottle of beer.

"I'm sorry you are leaving," she said, leaning in close, her eyes meeting his. Her gaze fell to his mouth and she moved so close that Spock shut his eyes to avoid seeing cross-eyed.

He felt Lucy's mouth on his own—and in a moment of belated insight, he realized that she was kissing him.

His first impulse was to push her away, but before he could, he felt her tongue slip past his teeth.

Hops and barley—and the tang of yeast—with one part of his mind he catalogued the flavor of Lucy—but the larger, more _feeling_ portion of his mind was both fascinated and repelled by where he felt her tongue—like a hot spike from the top of his head to his _lok_ —

He bit down instinctively and Lucy yelped.

"What the hell!"

They had both jumped up and scattered.

But here she was now, in Anna's backyard, the night before his grandmother's funeral. Anna disappeared into a small knot of people and he and Lucy were left facing each other.

He had no idea what to say.

Finally Lucy sighed loudly and said, "I'm sorry about your grandmother."

A Vulcan would have said, "I grieve with thee"—the formal diction a declaration of empathy and solidarity. What could he say to this odd human apology?

"Thank you," he said at last, and Lucy nodded as if satisfied about something.

"How have you been?" she said, starting to walk around the perimeter of the flower bed. Spock put his hands carefully behind his back and matched her pace.

"Very well, thank you," he said. "And you?"

Instead of answering, Lucy laughed softly.

"Last time—" she began. "I'm sorry. I…"

Shortly after getting back to Vulcan last summer, Spock had searched three book stores before finally finding a used copy of the collected poetry of Kohlar—something his chess teacher, Truvik, had once suggested.

The poetry was confusing. Written before the time of Surak and the adoption of logic as a way of life, the poetry celebrated raw passion in a way that made Spock feel squeamish as he read it.

_I am drawn to you against my will_ —the poet wrote _. I ravish you in my dreams._

As he read the discomfiting stanzas, he thought about T'Pring—and about Lucy, too, and his undeniable sexual response to her—but the lines did not ring true. He was not drawn. He did not dream.

Nor did he now—or at least, not in the way Kohlar seemed to describe. There was Lucy, prettier than he remembered her, her hair its natural blonde for a change, her light green eyes framed by dark lashes. If she wanted to kiss him again, he wouldn't mind.

But they chatted for a few minutes more—nothing of consequence—before parting. At the funeral the next day he saw her with her family but had no chance to speak to her in person.

His last night in Seattle was spent sprawled across the air mattress in his attic room, Rachel and Anna camped out in different corners, talking long after the adults had retired to their bedrooms.

"I'm glad that's over with," Rachel said, slipping off her shoes and wiggling her toes. "It's hard to pretend for so long."

"I know," Anna said. Spock looked from one sister to the other, trying to parse their meaning.

"Explain," he said at last, and Rachel sighed.

"You know, being sad and all that. About Grandmother."

This was a surprise. Spock assumed that both girls _were_ sad—after all, they had lived near their grandmother and had spent much more time with her than he had.

And, of course, the other thing. They were _human_.

"I mean," Rachel went on, "I'm not glad she's dead. I'm not that cold-hearted. It's just that—"

"She was who she was," Anna finished for her, and Spock almost jumped to hear his mother's words repeated.

"She didn't like me," Rachel said. "I think I got on her nerves."

"Everyone got on her nerves," Anna said. "She didn't like me either. Or Chris. Remember how she was always fussing that he never came to see her, and then when he was there, she spent the whole time fussing that he never came to see her? You're the only one she liked, Spock. She was always bragging about you."

He said nothing. Surely his cousins were mistaken, but pointing this out might offend them—or at the least, disturb their understanding of their grandmother. What would be the point, now that she couldn't defend herself or answer for what she may or may not have said.

He searched within himself for a sense of his mother and father—they were there, a steady presence…and tentatively he explored what his mother was feeling as she prepared for bed. Sadness, and exhaustion, and a flicker of worry about the trip home tomorrow.

He stretched out further and sensed his father's quietude—meditating, probably, untroubled by anything pressing.

Even more distant was his bond with T'Pring—faint but reassuring.

A chorus in his mind—comforting, even soothing at times.

_I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams._

Nothing like that—nothing at all.

"What are you doing?" Rachel said, interrupting his reverie.

"Thinking," he said immediately, and both girls surprised him with their laughter.

For once they got it wrong, his color-blind cousins, these girls who treated him like their brother.

"That's all you Vulcans do, isn't it?" Rachel said cheekily.

"It is indeed," he replied.

X X X X X X X

The new _asenoi_ is no help at all.

Despite spending hours—hours—sitting in front of it, relighting the candles when they burn out, sprinkling more incense when his focus starts to drift—Spock is as distracted as ever.

The image of Stonn standing in T'Pring's doorway at the hotel is like an afterimage in his brain. When he tries to empty his mind, the image floats up to his consciousness.

When he is able to banish the image of Stonn, the more troubling image replaces it—his arms around Nyota in his office, her cool body pressed against his, his certainty that in that moment he revealed what he had never meant to show—what he can never show.

Lately Spock has thought often about Truvik—partly because his mother let him know that his old teacher retired—and partly because the lessons Truvik taught him have had particular resonance.

Those chess strategies—and his determination to teach Spock as much about himself as about the game.

Truvik once told him that the fire embodied by an _asenoi_ was a borrowed metaphor from an earlier time. Fire, his old teacher had told him, represented passion in the poetry of T'Quir and Kohlar.

At the time Spock had dismissed his comments. Poetry interested him not at all—and _passion_ …he could imagine what his father might say if he asked his opinion of it.

The book of Kohlar's poetry he had bought after the confusing experience with Anna's friend Lucy had been hastily read and quickly filed away. Perhaps in light of his failure with meditation, it is time to turn again to any help the poetry might give him in understanding himself.

With a start, Spock realizes that his frustration is not with anyone else—not with Stonn or T'Pring or even with Nyota, but with himself.

_I am as conflicted as I once was as a child_ , he thinks.

His mother had promised to search his room for the book and send it on to him—so when he arrives at his office on Monday, he is not surprised to see it there.

"Cadet Uhura," he says, nodding at Nyota but trying to avoid looking at her directly.

"I'm finished with your mail and the filing," she says, "if you want me to check quizzes."

Does he want her help? Having her in the room is difficult enough. Having her handling the PADDs with him would be…unthinkable.

He hears the scrape of her chair leg and he realizes she is getting up to leave. Instead of the expected relief, he feels a twinge of unhappiness.

"Oh," she says, "I sent two tagged messages to your box."

Her friendliness is painful—her concern hard to bear.

Yet bear it he must. He takes a breath and tries to sound as friendly as she does.

"Would you care for some tea?"

She offers to make it—something she seems to enjoy doing—and he reads the two messages she had tagged. In a few moments he hears her return—the scent of tea wafting up from the mug she sets on his desk.

"A note from my mother," he says, hoping he sounds nonchalant. "She writes that my father's surgery is scheduled for later this week."

She is evidently surprised by the news—her voice is louder, her expression cloudy.

"So," she asks, "you are going? To Vulcan?"

"No. My schedule precludes that possibility."

"You can cancel your classes!"

"My presence will not affect the outcome of the surgery," he says, but he hears her disbelief.

"But your mother! She might want your company!"

An image of his mother swims in his imagination—her deep brown eyes missing nothing, her playful frown as she ends every subspace transmission with a reminder that she _needs_ to see him soon.

"My mother _would_ welcome my company," Spock says. "As she reminds me quite often."

He senses Nyota's readiness to leave and he hurries on.

"The other notice," he says, " is from the dean. I need your…advice. The Brodhead Prize-"

Instantly she makes the kind of intuitive leap that first caught his attention in his class—her almost detective-like ability to arrive at the correct conclusion with a bare minimum of clues.

"You got it!" Nyota says. "I knew you would! When I saw that you were nominated—"

"I do not intend to accept it," Spock says. "I am uncertain how to respond to the dean's notification—"

But she is horrified—or something that sounds equally scandalized.

"Your students are recognizing your importance in their education," she says, frowning, leaning closer with a surprising _passion_ in her voice. "If you refuse the prize, you are telling them that their opinion doesn't matter."

"Their opinion does not matter," Spock says. "My teaching is not affected by what my students think of me."

For a moment she is silent—has he offended her? It's true—he knows that many of his students complain about his teaching. That does not, however, affect his assessment of their work in class or his conviction on how he should present his lessons. In that sense, he does not care what his students think of him. Nyota, on the other hand, seems upset with his answer.

"No," she says. "You have to accept it. You _have_ to. I know what you are going to say—"

At that he struggles not to look bemused. When she claims to know his thoughts, he pictures his fingers drifting to her temple, seeing her world with her vision—

He mentally shakes himself. This is just the sort of needless imagining that the _asenoi_ should be helping him eliminate.

"You are going to argue that you don't need an award to tell you what you already know—that you work hard and do your best to make things clear for your students—Stop! Don't say anything. You know it's true. You think awards and honors are for other people—people who need a pat on the back to keep going. That you don't need that. And you are probably right. But what you aren't thinking about is that your students need to give you this award. They _need_ to. They don't have any other way to…thank you. So let them."

Something in the way she hesitates when she says _they don't have any other way to…thank you_ means something.

"Then I defer to your wisdom in this matter," he says at last, and she darts him a quick glance.

"I'm…sorry…I was so blunt," Nyota says, and he feels an odd relief—her earlier outburst was not from anger, but from…something else.

"No apology needed," he says. "I value your…honesty."

She leaves then to open the lab and run the tutorial. He leaves to keep office hours in the computer science building.

Except that he has forgotten—forgotten!—the regular maintenance work scheduled for this afternoon. His lapse is so unprecedented that he heads to his apartment, completely flustered.

Switching on the heat as high as he can and pulling on his mediation robe, after a few minutes Spock feels his heart slowing, his body warming.

With the flick of his fingernail he unwraps the book of poetry.

It is just as he remembered it—a small volume bound in dark purple silk, the pages faintly musty, the printing old-fashioned and heavily footnoted.

For an hour he reads—and feels the same intense discomfort he remembers from his earlier years.

_I am drawn to you against my will._

Once Truvik had told him that if he were lucky, he would not find anything in poetry that he didn't already know.

At the time, when he was 11 or 12, those words were a cipher.

The first time he read this volume, the words were still unfathomable.

_I am drawn to you against my will._

Now he knows.

The intercom blares suddenly.

"It's Uhura," he hears when he presses the button. "You left your comm at the office. I have it."

He signals the lock and opens the door to his apartment. The air in the hallway is chilly—no, cold—and when Nyota pushes the outside door open, he feels a blast of uncomfortable air.

_Determined._ That's the look on her face as she shivers in the night air and smiles up at him.

"I have your comm," she says, stepping up to his doorsill. She looks past him for a moment into the darkened apartment, but he doesn't dare invite her inside.

_I ravish you in my dreams._

"As you said."

Rocking forward gently, she slips her hand into her pocket. His eyes follow her motion as she pulls the comm out, placing it carefully in her palm so he can take it without touching her.

His glance travels from her eyes to her mouth and along her throat.

_I ravish you in my dreams._

As if from a great distance, he feels his hand lifting, reaching for her, ready to circle her with his arm, pulling her to him, leading her inside his apartment where the useless _asenoi_ casts its flickering light.

Down the hall a door opens and laughter spills out.

With a start he comes to himself.

"Thank you," Spock says, his fingers barely brushing her palm as he folds them around his comm.

She nods briefly and moves back, away from the lie he has heard his father say more than once— _there are always possibilities_.

He watches her walk purposefully down the hall, pushing open the heavy door against the evening breeze, never once looking back or seeing him still standing there in his doorway, facing the cold, bright hallway, the emotion Vulcans do not feel reflected in the unspoken supplication of his eyes.


	10. Memory

**Chapter 10: Memory**

**Disclaimer: I own little and profit from nothing.  
**

The list of the dead takes 9 hours to arrive.

Until it does, the Academy goes about its business with a sense of hushed grief. Even the cafeteria and the student center, usually bustling with noise and motion, are subdued as everyone watches the updates scrolling across the vidscreens.

The _USS Camden_ , caught in a particularly violent ion storm, ruptured a baffle plate—an event feared by all space-going sailors. The dead are the lucky ones—survivors of Delta radiation exposure are always horrifically maimed.

When the news of the explosion first breaks Tuesday morning, Nyota is in her dorm room, dressing after a shower and gathering up her books before heading to breakfast.

"Did you see this?" Gaila says, pointing to the computer screen. "That's J.C.'s posting, isn't it? And Rama? Isn't she on the _Camden_?"

Dropping her books on her bed, Nyota reads over Gaila's shoulder, stunned, frantically running through the list of recent graduates she knows who are aboard. Between the two of them, she and Gaila can think of at least a dozen.

It doesn't matter. Even if she hadn't known a single one, Nyota would feel the loss keenly. Starfleet is _family_ in the way the military has always been family.

All day as she goes to class and then to the language lab to run tutorials, Nyota checks the news feeds. A survey ship, the _Camden_ has a crew of 95 and is on routine patrol—or as routine as any trip exploring several ionized nebulas can be. By the time the list of the dead arrives, Nyota has read and reread the specs and public log entries enough times to have most of the details memorized.

No amount of information, however, prepares her for the shock when the names of the dead finally become available.

Seventeen—and the number of confirmed casualties is expected to rise as the Delta radiation takes a toll.

And there, at the top of the list, is J.C.

When she sees his name she feels the blood rush from her head and she reaches out to steady herself.

"I know him," a student sitting at a computer terminal in the lab says, pointing to a name on the list. From across the room someone else checking the list says, "Oh, my God!"

It occurs to Nyota that almost everyone on campus knows someone on the _Camden_. A scheduled rotation right before commencement last spring means that the ship has an inordinately high number of recent grads serving.

And J.C.

Tall and skinny—and with light brown hair that refused to stay neat. Always flashing a grin when he saw her across the cafeteria or in the language building hallway.

Gone.

J.C. is the reason she is Spock's aide—the reason, in fact, that she ignored the warnings of numerous first years and signed up for Spock's advanced biolinguistics class her second semester at the Academy.

"He's brilliant," J.C. told her as they puzzled over their course descriptions before registration. Two years ahead of Nyota, J.C. had met her at a dorm mixer, striking up a conversation that eventually blossomed into a short-lived spell of dating which they abandoned in favor of friendship.

"People complain he's too hard—but you won't have any trouble," he said. "He's tough but fair. I hope I get the job as his aide next year. Or at least that he'll agree to be my senior adviser."

As it turned out, Spock hired J.C. _and_ agreed to advise his senior project. In the meantime, Nyota took a second class from Spock and decided that most of the cadets who complained about how hard he was were actually reacting to his Vulcan demeanor—and the certainty that he would not accept excuses for shoddy work.

When J.C. applied for duty aboard a survey ship—a surprise to Nyota, who thought he was heading for academia—he had suggested she apply for the aide position.

"I warn you," J.C. told her, laughing, "it isn't easy. The Commander can be very demanding. I know five other cadets who didn't last a semester with him. I might get a medal if I make it to the end of the year."

She hasn't seen Spock all day. The one class he teaches on Tuesdays is in the computer science building, though he usually stops by the language lab during the afternoon. Nyota can trouble-shoot most computer issues on her own, and Spock's advanced students schedule their lab time during his office hours on other days in case they need his help. On Tuesdays he has no real reason to stop by.

How odd that she hasn't thought about that before.

When the list of the dead is posted, the students working in the lab leave and Nyota sits for a few minutes, debating whether or not to lock up and go back to her dorm or wait to see if anyone else stops in. Surely no one will want to work now.

She stands up shakily and begins the shut down procedures.

"Are you leaving?"

She jumps visibly and turns around to see Spock just inside the door.

"Everyone left," she says, making a fluttering motion with her hand toward the empty room. An inane comment—he can see that no one else is there. Still, she feels the need to say something.

Or at least to communicate her sadness with the tone of her voice.

"The lab doesn't close for another 43 minutes," Spock says with such detachment that Nyota is instantly angry.

"Commander!" she says, taking a step forward. "The _Camden's_ casualty list was just posted. I don't think anyone is going to come to the lab right now."

Something flicks across his expression—a shift in his brow, a narrowing of his lips, his eyes dark and intense. She meets his look and frowns.

Instead of answering, he turns from her as lithely as a cat and heads down the hall toward his office. _He's angry?_ The idea makes her furious.

When she finishes closing down the computers, she pulls the lab door to and follows him.

Here it is again—that strange gulf that sometimes seems to separate them…his refusal to attend his father during his surgery, his dismissal of the Brodhead Prize. At those moments Nyota thinks that she doesn't know him at all—that he is too alien to ever understand.

And then…and then.

And then she remembers the fleeting glimpse she had of his thoughts as he kept her from falling in his office.

Or the unexpected moments when she felt overwhelmed by his heat and intensity—standing poised above her on the stair before walking to the art gallery, or brushing his fingers along her palm when she handed his comm to him in the hallway of his apartment building.

Her imagination?

She's never been a fantasist. Indeed, her family calls her to account for her hard-nosed realism. If anything, she is the least likely person she knows to imagine…—and here she falters.

Imagine what, exactly?

She rounds the door into his office, her mouth open to… argue?...about his obvious annoyance that she closed the lab?…and sees that he is on the videophone. As she backs out the door, she notes that the person on the line is an admiral, his dark gray uniform and Starfleet insignia unmistakable.

Spock casts a glance back at her and signals with his hand. _Wait_. She pauses just outside the door.

"I intend to do so," Spock says into the speaker.

"Good," the admiral says. "I'm sure the family will appreciate it."

Silence then, and Nyota realizes that the admiral may be waiting for Spock to acknowledge his comment.

"As soon as the memorial service times are set," the admiral says, "I will let you know. Not before the weekend, I'm sure. That should give you plenty of time to prepare some remarks for the eulogy."

"Sir," Spock says, and Nyota feels a tingle judder up her spine. She has never heard that tone of voice from him before—alarmed, almost pleading, fraught with emotion. "I do not wish to speak at the memorial service."

"I don't understand."

The admiral is clearly annoyed.

Nyota hears Spock shifting in his chair—an uncharacteristic twitchiness that, like the tone of his voice, is new to her.

"Is this," Spock says, "an order?"

"Of course not," the admiral says hotly. "But I thought you would want to say something. Wasn't Lieutenant Ellison your student aide last year? You _are_ listed as his thesis adviser. Or did I get those facts wrong?"

The last question is said with such sarcasm that Nyota recoils.

"Your facts are accurate," Spock says, the same strain in his voice. "However, I must decline the invitation to speak."

The silence this time stretches on for what feels like an eternity.

Finally the admiral clears his throat.

"Very well," he says. "Komack out."

She isn't sure what to do next. Her chest feels tight and she realizes that she has been holding her breath. She lets it out with a rush.

"Cadet Uhura," Spock says, and she ducks her head around the door frame. "Come in, please."

He is sitting up so straight that his spine doesn't touch the back of his chair. Nyota sits in the chair next to his desk and folds her hands, waiting.

"I have been tasked," Spock begins, "with writing to the family of one of the _Camden's_ crew."

"J.C.," she says, turning to watch him. "The admiral said—"

Before she can continue, Spock says, "I know that you were friends with Lieutenant Ellison. He…mentioned…your association when you applied for this position."

At this Nyota's eyebrows shoot up. She had no idea that J.C. had spoken to Spock about her, probably putting in a good word. Her throat tightens and the tears that have been threatening all day spring to her eyes.

Spock glances at her briefly and turns to the PADD on his desk.

"I am uncertain as to the expected words of condolence," he says, picking up the stylus and offering it to her. "If you would—"

She jerks her hand back as if burned.

"I will _not_ write that note for you! You owe that to him!"

He is suddenly unmistakably, inexplicably angry.

She's never seen him angry before—not like this. Oh, he's been annoyed—usually with cadets who had the temerity to come to class unprepared the one and only time they ever dared—and then his irritation was merely hinted at with a raised eyebrow, a slight grimace.

But now.

His eyes are dark and heavy-lidded, his breathing flushed. The air around them seems unnaturally still.

For a moment she is afraid.

She might be ruining everything.

Taking a deep breath, she says, "Sir. Commander. I'm sorry, but I cannot…do this for you. J.C.'s family would be upset."

Spock doesn't move. His eyes stay on hers, flat and so black that she cannot see how she ever thought they reminded her of tea.

"It's just that—" she begins and then stumbles to a stop. "You probably knew him better than anyone else here. You can offer his family some comfort by letting them know—"

And then the tears that have been threatening do come, arcing down her cheeks as she tries to blink them away.

With one part of her attention she is aware that Spock is still watching her, the earlier fury in his expression gone, replaced by an indifference that hurts her feelings and saddens her. He is unmoved by her tears, by her obvious grief.

She has never felt so alone in his presence.

"Dismissed," he says, and she blinks again, this time in surprise. Hesitating a moment, she says, "I don't mean to offend you, but…you may not be familiar with how…humans react to loss. We need to feel connected to people who knew—"

"Cadet Uhura," Spock says, anger once again sharpening his tone and narrowing his gaze, "I believe I said you are dismissed."

Her backpack is on her chair across the room; she waits, standing in place beside Spock's desk, her own anger heating her face and twisting her stomach.

She's mortified that he has pulled a curtain between them this way—his tone, his words, separating them into commander and cadet, human and Vulcan.

No. Not a curtain. A chasm.

"Yes, sir," she says, not bothering to hide the anguish in her voice.

If he hears it, his stony expression gives no clue.

X X X X X X X

He has to look hard to see the scar.

Less than a centimeter long, it lies just below his 10th rib on his left side. He rarely thinks about it. If not for the pneumococcus vaccine he receives with his annual physical, he wouldn't have to think about it at all.

That wasn't always true. For the first few years after the surgery—from the time he was four until he entered school-his mother had been so vigilant about his health that he had complained more than once to his father.

"Human memory is not eidetic," Sarek said, "but is strengthened and altered by emotional reactions. In time your mother's memory of almost losing you will be less intense. Be patient until then."

But being patient was difficult. And _his_ memory _was_ eidetic.

He remembered, for instance, the pleasure of life before school—being young enough to stay contentedly beside his mother as she worked in her garden— _she_ culling young plomeek shoots while _he_ dug for worms and inspected them.

Or sitting at his father's feet in his study, both with PADDs in their hands—Sarek taking notes about some upcoming diplomatic mission, Spock scrolling through information about distant planets.

He remembered the gradual exhaustion that began to dog his afternoons—the need for rest before eating the evening meal, the loss of interest in music.

The times he surprised his mother by curling up beside her as she read, his head on her lap, too tired to examine the puzzles and photochips his father brought back from his travels.

His parents were worried—he could sense that, though they tried to hide their concern from him. Not just through their bond, but in conversations late at night, overheard snippets and sudden silences, Spock knew that something was wrong.

When Sybok came home for his midterm break from boarding school, Spock rallied a little, following his 14 year-old half-brother around as he did chores in the house and worked on a research project.

"Why so quiet, little one?" Sybok asked after a few days, but Spock was too weary to answer. That night a healer came to the house and reassured his parents that nutritional supplements would increase his energy.

"You may also," the healer said as he was packing his equipment and preparing to leave, "want to include some Terran foods in his diet. Perhaps his…unusual…metabolism is suffering because of a human deficiency."

His mother bridled at the implied insult. His father thanked the healer and showed him to the door.

The next morning Sarek and Sybok made a trip to the market district in Shi'Kahr to a specialty store that sold off-world foods. When they returned, Spock was listless in his bed, one arm draped over his pet _sehlat_ , the other tucked under his head.

"The store manager said these were special," Sybok said, sitting on the side of the bed and unwrapping a bright pink confection before lifting it to Spock's lips. "Here, take a bite."

The candy was so sweet that it was cloying. He let it dribble back out into Sybok's hand.

Standing in the doorway, Sarek shifted slightly and Spock felt his wave of concern. From the kitchen, he heard his mother set aside the vegetables she was cutting. In a moment she joined Sarek at the door.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, her face signaling her distress. He shook his head and Sybok said, "The candy did not appeal to him. That is all."

Yet even as he heard his brother saying it, he knew Sybok was being untruthful. His worry was evident.

For the next three days Amanda forced Spock to chew several mineral supplements at each meal—and at first, he seemed to have more energy. Then Sybok had to leave to return to school and Spock begged to be allowed to go with Sarek in the flitter to take him to the transport station.

Instead of being annoyed at his insistence, his father seemed oddly pleased. _He's getting better_ , he felt his parents tell each other. Sybok, too, looked more upbeat as he headed into the busy station.

The respite was short-lived. The evening after Sybok's departure, Spock refused any food at all, putting his head on the table and falling asleep. His alarmed parents bundled him into the flitter and hurried him to the medical center in the city.

Later as a teenager Spock often thought back to what happened next, unsure of the accuracy of the memories. For 27 days he languished in the hospital, his mother never leaving, his father making frantic calls to various healers. Spock endured a succession of tests—numerous scans and blood samples, at first with some resistance, and then with mute indifference.

The pain started soon after, a dull ache in his side that alerted the pediatric cardiologists to a possible heart defect. At first his parents seemed relieved to have a plausible diagnosis—but his heart was fine, and the healers could not discern what was causing his pain or his exhaustion.

"It is our opinion," the head healer said to his parents as they stood in the hall outside his room, "that the child is simply not thriving."

"What does that mean?" his mother said, her voice pitched higher than normal.

"He means," Sarek said, "that Spock has stopped progressing naturally. He may not be able to—"

His mother's dismay was like a lance in his mind. He winced when she spoke.

"Don't tell me that!" she said with such anger that Spock felt his heart skip a beat. "Tell me what to do about it!"

"The hybridization appears to be unsuccessful," the healer continued, apparently unfazed by Amanda's outburst. "We will notify the geneticists, of course, but we may be seeing the limits of what this particular organism can do."

His mother's anger and grief washed over him like a wave—and underneath it, his father's fury.

And then he knew. He was going to die.

He must have lapsed into semi-consciousness—his memories of the next weeks were patchy and incomplete. At some point his aunt Cecilia and her husband, David, appeared at his bedside, both with the same expressions on their faces that seemed etched on his mother's.

"How could he do so well for four years and then just _stop_?" his mother asked them, weeping. "How is this possible?"

Eventually he was too tired to open his eyes. From time to time he felt a sharp prick as more blood was taken. A smooth hand palpitated his belly. His mother's cool fingers brushed back the hair from his forehead.

And then he stopped hearing, too—the sounds of the hospital receding into muffled confusion.

Yet he wasn't afraid, or even alone. His mother was there, and his father—in his mind, soothing him, or trying to. Their distress was more upsetting than the idea that he was dying.

_We will have his katra._

His father's words, and his mother's tears as he said them—Spock struggled to open his eyes but failed.

When he was a teenager Spock thought of this time often when he visited his aunt and uncle in Seattle and someone—Cecilia, usually—made some cryptic remark about his health.

"You keeping up with your shots?" she might ask.

Once she scolded him for neglecting to call home when he arrived for a two-week visit.

"Your mother does not deserve another fright from you," she said, her eyes _shooting daggers_ —a phrase his cousin Anna had recently taught him. "Call her now."

In the end, humans saved him—he has always known this. Although his family doesn't _tell_ the story, they _know_ it.

How his pediatrician aunt and her surgeon husband insisted that they be shown his records—how Cecilia and David culled through them for any clue, any hint—and found one in his blood composition.

Even in the few weeks that he was hospitalized, his red blood count—always miniscule—had crept up. The Vulcan healers had noted it but thought it insignificant.

When Spock began complaining of pain, however, Cecilia narrowed her focus.

"That's when I started thinking about your spleen," she told Spock on one of his summer visits. "In human infants, the spleen stops making red blood cells before birth and starts making antibodies instead. Yours, however—"

She had smiled and patted her own side.

"It was churning out red blood cells enough to trigger an auto-immune response— _and_ churning out enough antibodies to finish you off. Humans can live without a spleen. You couldn't live with one. Case closed. Easy fix."

It _was_ an easy fix—surgery to remove his spleen, an organ unfamiliar to the Vulcan healers—leaving enough splenetic tissue to fight off ordinary infection and cut the red blood cell production to minimal. An annual vaccine could protect him from the riskier, hardier pneumococcus bacteria.

Still, Spock's recovery was relatively slow. For him, at least. Within a few weeks after the splenectomy he was ready to resume his normal activities. His mother had other plans.

That's when he began appealing to his father for help.

"Be patient," Sarek said more than once. "We almost lost you. Your mother needs time to really know that you are here."

By the time he was preparing for his _kahs-wan_ , his mother's memories of his surgery had lessened enough that she no longer cautioned him every time he went out alone—though he was always aware of her worry, the way he could feel his own breathing or the thrum of his heart.

If he expected her to stop worrying once he had successfully completed his _kahs-wan_ , he was disappointed. He could still sense her concern for him through their bond, as he could feel her pride—and that of his father, and even of Sybok, recently graduated and home before starting his studies at the Vulcan Science Academy.

Tall and stocky like Sarek and wearing his coarse black hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, Sybok often folded himself into a chair in the corner of Spock's bedroom and chatted with him in the afternoons before they busied themselves helping prepare the evening meal.

"She worries because she loves you," Sybok said. Spock's chest tightened at his brother's words—just the kind of unrestrained talk that increasingly elicited a rebuke from Sarek. Although Sarek and Sybok did not quarrel openly, Sybok's experimentation with emotion—or at least, his uncensored speech about it—bordered on scandalous in polite Vulcan society.

When Sybok proposed a short camping trip into the mountains before the school term started back, Amanda at first said no—and Sarek, too, though his reasons were unclear to Spock.

"His mother would be anxious," Spock overheard Sarek telling Sybok one night after the evening meal. "And your trustworthiness is in question."

"You find me untrustworthy," Sybok said, not hiding his irritation, "because I dare to challenge tradition."

"Exactly," Sarek said, his own voice raised slightly. From where he lay in his bed, his bedroom door opened slightly, Spock angled his head to hear better.

"Tradition," Sarek said, "is a guide—"

"It is a restraint!"

For a moment Spock heard nothing—but the tension was a lead weight settling in his side.

And then, the voices of his father and brother, indistinct, quieter now, murmuring on and on, even as Spock's eyes grew heavy and closed against his will.

Whatever was said, the next day Sybok woke him early with the good news—they were going camping.

"It may be the last chance we have to get away for some time," Sybok said, wrapping slices of dried _fori_ and whole _kasa_ and tucking them into his backpack. "Once the semester starts, my studies will keep me busy."

A frown flashed across Sybok's face and he said, "And you, too. I know how…school…has been for you."

 _He couldn't know_ , Spock thought. _Could he?_ He looked up at his brother and wondered, not for the first time, about Sybok's uncanny ability to see inside him, to read him.

The first day of the trip was uneventful—even, if the truth was told, boring. Rather than being freed by their time away from home, Sybok became quiet and almost reticent to speak.

Spock attributed his mood to anxiety about his upcoming interview. Normally students were accepted to the Vulcan Science Academy after a single round of interviews and conferences. Ever since the head of the Academy requested a second round from Sybok, the tension in the house had increased tremendously.

As they unrolled their sleeping mats the first night, Spock broached the subject.

"Are you nervous?" he asked, almost ashamed for asking. What if Sybok took his question as a vote of no confidence?

But if anything, Spock's question unstoppered Sybok's silence. His big brother laughed long and loud into the shadows, frightening some creature that skittered away into the rocks.

"Yes!" Sybok shouted. "And no!"

"I do not understand—"

"I feel both things, little brother! I want to do well, to study at the Academy—"

And then Sybok lay back, his arms crossed behind his head, looking up at the darkening sky.

"But the universe is very large," he said, "and there are many things to do if I do not get accepted."

They passed the night on the first large plateau in the L-langon Mountains, a half day's walk from the southern-most edge of Shi'Khar. The rocks of the mountains were the intense red that most off-worlders thought of as typically Vulcan, rising up from the landscape like jagged bricks. Scrubby bushes grew in the lee of the scarps; thin, tough grass edged the larger boulders.

Although the night was cold and uncomfortable, Spock felt sleep tugging at him before he could say all he wanted to. Sybok's voice was a pleasant drone; the stars flickered and grew more distinct as Eridani set completely.

"What would you do?" Spock asked, pulling the thermal blanket more tightly around his shoulders. "If you are not accepted? Where would you go?"

Sybok waited so long to answer that Spock began to think that he had fallen asleep. A rustle, a sigh, and then Sybok sat up, his image dark against the shadows.

"Out there," he said, and Spock saw his arm lift up to the stars. "To see what is there."

A strange thought, to leave home that way, and disquieting somehow. Spock fell asleep uneasily.

When he opened his eyes the sky was still black, the stars still sharp and bright. He had been asleep only 87 minutes—a short interval, even for him. Something must have awakened him.

The night noises were disorienting—insect chirps and bird calls, and the steady sound of the wind soughing around the nearby rock formations. To his left he could just make out Sybok's heavy breathing—rhythmic and steady and indicative of sleep.

Spock hushed his own breathing and listened.

There. A low growl. Almost too faint to hear—but Spock felt the hair on the back of his neck rise.

Something was padding this way. Footfalls, and another snarl.

And suddenly he knew. A _le-matya_ —larger than a Terran puma and more powerful, with poisoned claws.

For a heady second he hoped the _le-matya_ would pass them by—a fanciful thought that had no basis in logic. Clearly the animal had caught their scent and was actively stalking them.

Before he could call out to wake Sybok, Spock heard the _le-matya_ springing quickly across the loose stones. With a jolt he was rocked sideways, his sleeping mat tearing as he tumbled under the weight of the large cat-like animal. The stench of carrion was overwhelming.

With its huge paw, the _le-matya_ swatted Spock hard enough to roll him forward several feet. In vain he tried to wrap himself in the tattered sleeping mat, but the _le-matya_ grabbed it with its teeth and shook it loose.

Completely exposed, Spock waited for the _le-matya_ to bite down.

From behind him he heard a roar as Sybok lit a flare and waved it wildly. The _le-matya_ paused and cowered slightly—as if uncertain what to do. Another shout from Sybok—and the _le-matya_ reluctantly backed away, slowly at first—then paced a few feet toward the escarpment.

"Go on!" Sybok yelled again, running forward. With a final snarl, the _le-matya_ loped away into the shadows.

In an instant Sybok was at Spock's side. He held the flare over him with one hand and placed his other palm on Spock's chest.

"Let me see you," he said breathlessly. "Are you injured?"

Spock shook his head, but as soon as he moved, he was so nauseated that he gagged.

"No, no, no, no, _no_ ," Sybok said through clenched teeth. His face was contorted into a broad grimace—and that, more than anything, alarmed Spock.

"You can't be," Sybok said, waving the flare over Spock, looking for an obvious wound.

And there it was on his forearm, a knick no larger than his surgical scar, and as neat, too—the telltale scratch from the _le-matya's_ poisoned claws.

Glancing down, Spock examined the scratch in the flickering light of the flare. It hardly bled—but the skin around it was already starting to pucker and swell. His arm was alternately hot and numb—and then throbbing, needle-sharp.

"We have to get you back," Sybok said, the sound of his panic unmistakable. _Back?_ They were hours from home by foot. How were they going to get _back_?

Another wave of nausea made him retch and he rolled weakly onto his side.

"Come on," Sybok said, slipping his arm under Spock and tugging him upright. Without meaning to, Spock yelped and batted at Sybok.

"I'll carry you," Sybok said, but the pain in Spock's arm was traveling so quickly through his torso that he couldn't bear to be touched. He yelped again as Sybok tried to pick him up.

"You have to help me," his older brother said, lowering him back to the ground. "Spock, listen! You have to help! You have to manage the pain so I can carry you. Concentrate! Pay attention!"

But he couldn't. The pain was everywhere—it was as big as the sky, as the universe. It radiated through his body and heated up all of space. Even the stars, distant and cold, felt the heat of his pain.

He could hardly breathe.

"Listen to me!" he heard Sybok shouting in his ear, but he couldn't listen. The pain was as loud as a thunderclap, as high as the mountain they had painstakingly climbed up the day before. The pain was an animal, chewing him up, swallowing him in pieces.

He had never felt pain like this before—freezing him and burning him simultaneously, making him cry out like a small child. _I am dying_ , he tried to say, but his mouth was full of ashes and his nose was filled with clay.

 _I am dying,_ he thought, the idea as stark and clear as a mathematical equation. _I am dying, and no one can stop it._

He felt a gentle wash of sadness competing with the pain for his attention. His parents would be distressed, and some of his teachers, perhaps, and one boy at school who always stood apart when the bullying started, pulled away by some sympathetic sensibility that was not strong enough to help him raise his voice or his hand against Spock's tormentors.

But Spock had noticed him—had taken comfort from the boy's stepping back, his symbolic rejection of what was happening.

He would like to have told the boy thank you.

So many things were answered by his death—things that no longer would be problems, he thought, his sadness ebbing away until the idea of his death was a mere abstraction, something he could consider without a flicker of emotion.

His parents' recent flurry of searching for a suitable bondmate for him—one less thing to concern them, now.

His father's tension with Sybok—his brother who drifted in and out of his life at odd times, away at school or visiting his Vulcan relatives—people Spock had never met, had wondered about often. Perhaps his father would let go of his disappointment of them both.

"Listen to me!"

Sybok, still calling him.

He felt Sybok's fingers on his face, probing past the pain—his hot fingers scorching his cheeks, his temple, his brow.

 _I am dying_ , he thought, but instead of the empty echo of before, he heard Sybok's voice answer.

_I am here._

Always in the past, Spock's bond with Sybok had been warm but tenuous, like a candle seen in the distance.

But now his brother was in his mind, soothing him, cooling some of the raging heat of the _le-matya_ poison with his force of will.

"Hold on," he heard Sybok say aloud, and he felt himself lifted from the dirt, and then Sybok's burly arms circling him, holding him as he began to jog across the shifting rocks and sands of the plateau.

Twice as they descended the mountain path, Spock cried out—and both times Sybok offered him mental distractions—pictures from his own childhood, very different from Spock's.

A motherless child—an orphan in many ways—raised by an austere aunt…Sybok's visits from his father intermittent and fraught with recrimination from his mother's family. A story Spock had surmised without knowing many of the details—and the ones he did know, never spoken of openly, taboo.

In the haze of his pain, Spock struggled to follow Sybok's narrative—the faces of his father and mother and Sybok's aunt floated and bobbed unevenly, and over them all, Sybok's longing and loneliness.

 _I never knew_ , Spock thought, abashed, sorrow for Sybok's own pain rushing through him.

 _You have kept me from being lonely,_ Sybok told him, reassuring him. _And Sarek—though we sometimes hide our affection from each other._

_And I have your mother._

At that Spock saw his mother through Sybok's eyes—her smile, her hand on his shoulder, her affection she did not hide—all were a healing balm for her stepson.

"I have him!" he heard Sybok say.

By then the pain was gone, replaced by a lightness of being that was almost pleasing.

 _I am leaving now_ , he told Sybok, but a sudden jerk forced his eyes open.

Two men in some sort of uniform were taking him from Sybok's arms, and his father stood to the side, and his mother, her face blurred and distorted—

Why were they here, in the desert? He shifted his gaze idly and saw the familiar mountain range—red and imposing.

A whirring noise hurt his ears—and Sybok's face swam away as the uniformed men strapped him to a carrier and slid it into a waiting hovercraft.

A healer—a thin older woman with a hood protecting her head from the sand raised by the hovercraft rotors—stroked his head and looked up as Sarek climbed up into the hovercraft.

"His _katra_ ," the healer said, "is still here. If we can save his body—"

A terrific roar and the hovercraft took off.

That was the last thing Spock remembered until he awoke at home, in his own bed, startled to realize that 32 hours had passed.

No one was in the room with him—he knew without opening his eyes. The room was too quiet—and he could hear voices in the study.

Not his mother's—he reached out through their bond and located her in her bedroom, dreamlessly sleeping. The voices, then, must be his father and brother.

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes again. The _le-matya_ —he saw it again, and remembered the rough nap of its fur, the stench of its breath.

"Inexcusable," Sarek said, and Spock's eyes snapped open.

"He is unharmed," Sybok said, a note of umbrage in his voice.

"Unharmed! When we found you, he was close to death."

Someone paced heavily across the floor—Sybok, most likely. Spock couldn't imagine his father making such an emotional display.

"But his _katra_ was safe—"

"You should have exercised more care," Sarek said. "Your choice of a place to set up camp was ill-advised. You both could have been killed."

Spock could hear Sybok's voice—not his words but the rumble of his reply. _Anger_ —even without seeing the two men, Spock could feel their heightened emotions flaring.

"Your impetuousness almost cost Spock his life," Sarek said, loud enough for Spock to hear. "It is one thing for you to destroy your own chances with your illogical behavior and quite another to put Spock in danger."

"I would never knowingly harm Spock—"

"Precisely," Sarek says. "You choose _not_ to know a great deal—in your pursuit of your own emotional gratification. Your choice to _feel_ instead of _know_ what you should do is inexcusable."

Silence then—not even the sound of a footfall. At last Spock heard Sybok speak again.

"And your choice to _know_ instead of to _feel_ what you should have done—years ago when you sent me away…"

"I did what I deemed best."

"For you! I needed you—"

"Your mother's family claimed you, Sybok. I had no legal recourse until your aunt died—"

"But," Sybok said, his voice low and husky, mocking, "there are always possibilities."

Slipping from his bed, Spock felt the cool tile floor beneath his feet. He stood for a moment, weaving unsteadily, before pushing open his door and padding down the hallway to the room where Sarek and Sybok stood glaring at each other.

They looked up in unison at him.

"Spock—" Sybok began.

"Why are you out of bed?" his father said.

"I heard voices," he said, glancing from Sybok to his father, looking like versions of each other, flushed and dark eyed.

"Go back to bed," Sarek said, but Spock didn't move. For a moment he considered outright refusing—sitting on the floor, immovable, keeping Sarek and Sybok focused on something other than their argument.

At last Sybok took a step forward.

"Come on, little brother, " he said, leaning down and offering his arm. Spock looked up at his father and then slipped his arm through Sybok's, letting him lead him back to the bedroom.

"You need rest," Sybok said, lifting up the covers while Spock slid between them. He sat on the side of the bed and tucked the blanket around Spock's shoulders. "That little human thing…that _spleen_ —it worked overtime keeping you alive."

"My spleen?" Spock said, confused. "It was taken out when I was four."

"Not all of it," Sybok said. "You have just enough to help fight off _le-matya_ poison. I heard the healer telling Father."

Sybok shifted on the bed, smoothing his hand over the blanket.

"How lucky that you are part human. Otherwise you would just be a dead Vulcan."

At this Sybok's eyes crinkled and his lips quirked up.

"A belief in luck is not logical," Spock said. "The term _lucky_ implies the existence of a sentience that determines our destiny."

For a moment Sybok was silent, but then his lips quirked up again.

"You may be right," he said, "but that does not mean I am wrong. You _are_ lucky that you are also human. You have more… _freedom_ …than you know."

He stood up then, looking down at Spock for a moment before treading lightly across the floor and palming the light switch by the door.

"Where are you going?" Spock asked.

"Going?" Sybok said, quizzically. "I'm not going anywhere."

But it wasn't true. In the morning Spock found his mother preparing breakfast in the kitchen, her face streaked and her eyes red.

And Sybok was gone.

X X X X X X X

He gets the notice about the _Camden_ in the middle of the night—not that he is asleep, but most of the humans on campus are. The briefing is scheduled for 0500—with expected release of the first public notice a few hours later.

Despite the loss of sleep, most of the officers and professors assembled at the auditorium at headquarters are hyper-alert—wide-eyed and jumpy. The mood stays taut until the casualties are announced at the end of the meeting—and then the anticipation turns to something quieter, stiller. Grief, or the beginning of it—and the shock of recognition.

Spock stares unblinking at his PADD as the crowd around him begins to disperse, some of them talking softly to each other, others mute and subdued.

He reads it again.

 _Lt. J. C. Ellison, communications officer_.

The first name on the list.

The name he put there.

Dimly he is aware that only a few people remain in the auditorium by the time he rises and makes his way to the aisle.

In three hours he is scheduled to meet with his computer science class—a group of advanced students working on a neuronal network to replace the slower binary one currently used in the universal translator. The public announcement about the _Camden_ won't be posted until after the class is over—and the information has been embargoed until then. Facing the students knowing that they have lost friends or family and do not know it yet will be a challenge.

He lights his _asenoi_ as soon as he gets back to his apartment.

Useless.

The class itself is a welcomed distraction. The eager faces of the students working with their lab partners, the buzz of easy conversation—they help him avoid thinking about Lieutenant Ellison—J.C.

Too soon the class is over and the students file out. Watching them, he has an illogical impulse to call them back, to invent some excuse to hold them here longer.

But he says nothing, and soon the room is empty.

Normally he heads to the language lab immediately after his computer science class, but today he has such poor control that he hesitates.

Last night he came close to falling—the touch of Nyota's palm under his fingertips as he picked up his comm was almost more than he could bear.

Giving in to that impulse—

It would cost them both.

He knows he needs to stay away now, while his control is shaky.

When he leaves the computer science building he can tell that the news is spreading. Small groups of cadets stand clustered, talking in hushed tones. When he passes it, the cafeteria appears empty, even though lunch is being served.

Until he finds himself there, Spock doesn't know that he is heading to the outdoor amphitheater that overlooks the bay. Students come here often to sit and chat or read or study—indeed, several are here now, and no one looks up when Spock slips to a seat on the top row.

He had sat here—if not in this precise spot, close enough—when he told _Cadet Ellison_ that he had been posted to the _Camden_ after all—not a sure thing, given the competitiveness of the candidates.

"Thank you, sir!" J.C. had said, his normally sunny attitude even more spirited than usual. "I know you had to pull some strings! I wouldn't have had a chance without your recommendation. You won't be disappointed!"

Spock had said nothing—had let the young cadet express his gratitude and enthusiasm without cautioning him to show more restraint—something he had done from time to time when J.C.'s ebullience wore thin on his patience.

The cadet had never seemed to mind—had, in fact, been a very good aide. By the middle of their second semester together, Spock had suggested J.C. might apply for the position of communications officer on the _Enterprise_ still under construction at the Riverside Shipyard.

"Are you thinking of applying, too?" J.C. had asked, and Spock realized something he hadn't articulated to himself—that teaching was slowly slipping from interesting to routine—that fewer of his students seemed able to meet his standards of excellence or were too willing to settle for less.

The _Enterprise_ would need a science officer—a way, as Sybok had said, to _see_ _what is out there._

How strange to think that the Vulcan Science Academy—that the safe refuge it had once seemed to offer—felt so…alien.

Was Starfleet Academy also becoming a place to hide?

"An interesting proposition," Spock had replied. "I know you yourself have spoken of your interest in teaching, and that may be the right path for you."

He had looked at the young cadet carefully before continuing.

"But in the time that I have known you, I have heard you speak often about the appeal of exploration. Staying here will not provide that for you. Active duty onboard a ship might offer more possibilities."

They had continued their discussion from time to time—Spock suggesting that if J.C. really were interested in a posting on the _Enterprise_ , experience would be key.

When the _Camden_ rotation was announced, J.C. asked Spock to write his recommendation and Spock complied—and more.

He _pulled some strings_.

Not hard—and not for someone undeserving.

But he sent a note to an admiral who in turn put in a good word.

And now—Lt. J.C. Ellison's name is at the top of the casualty list.

The wind from the bay turns chilly as a cloud covers the sun. Spock stands up and heads toward the language building.

As he goes up the stairs he meets two students coming down—both in such obvious distress that he can't help but notice. The casualty list, then—it must have been posted. At the briefing this morning the admiralty had said the list would be released as soon as all of the families were notified.

On the third floor he walks to the end of the hall, looking into the lab where Nyota is moving slowly at the master console.

"Are you leaving?"

Nyota jumps visibly and turns around when he steps inside the door of the lab.

"Everyone left," she says. She may be unaware of the time—not unusual for humans, particularly when they are upset.

"The lab doesn't close for another 43 minutes."

To his astonishment, her face changes instantly—her eyes narrowing in anger.

"Commander!" she says, taking a step forward. "The _Camden's_ casualty list was just posted. I don't think anyone is going to come to the lab right now."

His eidetic memory serves him poorly now, showing him images he does not want to see. J.C.'s face flashes in his mind like an afterimage.

Nyota meets his eyes and frowns. What can he say?

That he is the reason her friend is at the top of the list?

Instead of answering, he heads down the hall toward his office. When he is still twenty feet away from the door he hears the videophone chiming.

With one hand he touches the screen to answer the call. As he slides into the chair behind his desk, he is surprised to feel his other hand clenched into a tight ball. With conscious effort he unbends his fingers.

"Komack here."

"Admiral."

"Captain Jensen is sending a letter to the parents of Lt. Ellison, but I thought you might want to do the same. The captain has only known him a few months."

Behind him he hears Nyota rustle at the door and he glances back at her. She is backing away, leaving, and he motions with his hand for her to wait.

"I intend to do so," Spock says into the speaker.

"Good," the admiral says. "I'm sure the family will appreciate it."

"As soon as the memorial service times are set," the admiral says, "I will let you know. Not before the weekend, I'm sure. That should give you plenty of time to prepare some remarks for the eulogy."

Spock has attended few memorials—and spoken at only one, the service for T'Pring's grandmother, T'Zela.

Losing T'Zela had been a blow. At the time he was living at home, hopeful that he and T'Pring could forge the sort of relationship that blended friendship and intimacy.

Certainly T'Zela had seemed to think they might.

Because she died alone, T'Zela's _katra_ was lost—a far greater disappointment to Spock than her physical death. Disabled for many years, T'Zela had often said that death would be a relief—and she had been scornful of the Vulcan preoccupation with preserving someone's _katra_.

At her memorial he had spoken truly, that losing T'Zela and her _katra_ was a double blow that saddened him. From where he stood on the dais, Spock noted T'Pring's disapproval tick across her face—so quick and faint that he would not have seen it if he hadn't also felt it across their bond.

When her turn came to stand in front of the mourners, T'Pring looked carefully over the crowd and said clearly, "My grandmother is free in every way possible. For that I am grateful."

He felt her words as a rebuke.

"Sir," Spock says, "I do not wish to speak at the memorial service."

He knows that his voice wavers, but the idea of revealing his part in J.C.'s death is untenable.

Logically he knows he is not at fault…and yet—

"I don't understand."

The admiral is clearly annoyed.

"Is this," Spock says, shifting in his chair, "an order?"

"Of course not," the admiral says. Spock hears the annoyance in his voice but cannot think how to explain his reticence. "But I thought you would want to say something. Wasn't Lieutenant Ellison your student aide last year? You _are_ listed as his thesis adviser. Or did I get those facts wrong?"

"Your facts are accurate," Spock says. "However, I must decline the invitation to speak."

Finally the admiral clears his throat.

"Very well," he says. "Komack out."

A sigh so soft that he almost misses it.

Nyota, waiting in the hall.

"Cadet Uhura," Spock says, and she ducks her head around the door frame. "Come in, please."

He is sitting up so straight that his spine doesn't touch the back of his chair. Nyota sits in the chair next to his desk and folds her hands, waiting.

"I have been tasked," Spock begins, "with writing to the family of one of the _Camden's_ crew."

"J.C.," she says, turning to watch him. "The admiral said—"

Before she can continue, Spock says, "I know that you were friends with Lieutenant Ellison. He…mentioned…your association when you applied for this position."

At this Nyota's eyebrows shoot up. Something has surprised her. She hasn't forgotten that J.C. was his aide last year. Is she surprised that J.C. would share personal information with him? That they had moments of friendly conversation?

_Is he that alien to her?_

_Hold onto that idea_. It may offer the space he needs—the space they need—between them.

Spock glances at her briefly and turns to the PADD on his desk to avoid showing the alarm he feels. Her eyes are filling with tears—understandable, of course, but he will be called upon to respond.

If only his control were stronger.

The _asenoi_ , the book of Kohlar's poetry—nothing has given him a measure of peace.

"I am uncertain as to the expected words of condolence," he says, picking up the stylus and offering it to her. "If you would—"

She jerks her hand back as if burned.

"I will _not_ write that note for you! You owe that to him!"

She cannot know that what he owes J.C. is so vast that he cannot put words to the fury he feels.

 _The universe has no sentience that determines our destiny._ What a folly to try to intervene— _to pull strings_ —on someone's behalf. He won't make that mistake again.

A promising cadet—one who would be safely in graduate studies now if he hadn't intervened.

Instead, all that he is—all that he was—is as lost as T'Zela.

As lost as Sybok, whose silence offers no hint of his whereabouts.

And to a degree, as his father, their relationship still so strained that a trip home during his surgery is unimaginable.

He tries to steady his breathing and fails.

"Sir," Nyota says, her eyes seeking out his own. "Commander. I'm sorry, but I cannot…do this for you. J.C.'s family would be upset."

Spock doesn't move. His eyes stay on hers, holding onto something, someone.

"It's just that—" she begins and then stumbles to a stop. "You probably knew him better than anyone else here. You can offer his family some comfort by letting them know—"

And then tears arc down her cheeks and he feels an almost physical pain lance through his side.

 _You are lucky that you are human_ , he thinks, watching her face contort even as he struggles to mask his own. _You have more freedom than you know._

"Dismissed," he says. If she doesn't leave now he will fall—and he can't, he won't—allow himself to cause more destruction today.

"I don't mean to offend you," she says, "but…you may not be familiar with how…humans react to loss. We need to feel connected to people who knew—"

"Cadet Uhura," Spock says, hearing the rising panic in his voice, "I believe I said you are dismissed."

Her backpack is on her chair across the room; she waits, standing in place beside Spock's desk.

"Yes, sir," she says, turning slowly away, tearing a hole in the universe.

When her footfalls stop echoing in the stairwell and a subtle shift in the air pressure signals that she has opened and closed the outside door, he sits, idly rubbing the tiny keloid under his 10th rib, feeling his heartbeat pulsing under blood and bone.

This is better—this ache that will help him stay apart.

No, not better.

But essential.


	11. Truth

**Chapter Eleven: Truth**

**Disclaimer: Don't own, don't rent, just borrow.**

"Want to come with us?" Gaila asks, slipping on her shoes at the door.

Nyota looks up briefly from where she is sprawled on her back on her dorm bed, her PADD propped on her stomach, papers and books on the floor in uncharacteristic disorder.

"No, thanks," she says, tapping her PADD with a stylus. "I can think of about a million things I'd rather do than hang out with Jim Kirk."

"We're just going to Moe's," Gaila says, referring to a bar near the south gate of the Academy. "J.C.'s sister is coming—"

"Thanks," Nyota says, frowning. "I'll see her tomorrow at the service."

Gaila says nothing else but lets the door shut gently—a concession to Nyota's prickly mood.

It's true—she has been prickly. And why not? She knows five of the crew members killed onboard the _Camden_. Two other friends are seriously wounded.

And she hasn't seen Spock since the news broke.

Since he dismissed her.

For the past three days when she has gone into work, she has found succinct lists of things for her to do—written in his precise handwriting on an old-fashioned notepad on his desk—a different page each day.

Nothing else in the office shows any evidence that he has been there. His personal PADD, his ever-changing stack of books and flimplasts from other researchers—all still there on one corner of his desk, untouched.

She feels her chest tighten and she sits up in bed.

 _Dismissed_ , he had said, and she had felt he meant it not as a command but a wish. _Go away._

So she had. But she hadn't expected him to be the one to disappear.

 _Dismissed_ —because he was angry with her for refusing to step in and write the letter to J.C.'s family for him.

"Stop expecting him to act like a human," Gaila had chastised her when she had complained about Spock's pulling rank.

"I'm not," Nyota had bristled, but even as she said it, she knew that Gaila was right. She had expected him to know what to do, what to say. Maybe Vulcans didn't grieve—or expressed it differently.

Well, she would have to apologize, would have to find a way to make amends—to bridge this cultural divide. Or their personal one.

That odd reaction he had to the Brodhead Prize—his dismissal of it. And his father's surgery? Spock's reluctance to travel home?

How unalike they are.

Sighing, she stands up and slips on her shoes. Staying here pretending to work on a psycholinguistics project is a waste of both her time and energy. She might as well head to Moe's—a beer with her classmates might not be such a bad idea.

But once she is outside, she walks on past the south gate and continues in the direction of the language building. If she wants to wallow in sadness about J.C. tonight, she'd rather do it sitting in the darkened lab than a dreary bar. At least in the lab she can imagine him walking among the computers as he had last year at the Academy, working as Spock's aide.

And she might be able to get a little work done there, calling up some restricted research articles she needs to move ahead on her project.

At the front door of the language building, she keys in her code and tugs open the heavy door. The lights in the stairwell snap on as she mounts the steps.

As she reaches the third floor landing she sees immediately that Spock's office door is open and his light is on. She isn't surprised—he's obviously been coming in at night to leave her the lists of things to do, but seeing proof of his presence is surprisingly hurtful. He's been avoiding her—something she hasn't wanted to acknowledge until now.

For a moment she hesitates, listening as her footsteps reverberate in the quiet building. She could turn around and go back down the stairs, or she could do as she originally planned, head to the lab at the other end of the hall.

He knows she is here. She's sure of it.

Looking once at the lab door, she walks toward Spock's office instead.

Usually when she enters his office, Spock is already looking in her direction—sitting motionless, his hand poised over whatever he is doing, waiting for her.

Tonight he is sitting with his back to the door, his posture oddly canted away from her, as if he can keep her out of his awareness by not looking at her.

That same space is there—that gulf that opened up between them when he told her _dismissed_. When he spoke to her as Vulcan to human, commander to cadet.

Her resolve falters.

But then she sees it—a miniscule twitch of his shoulders, the slightest angling of his head—the tip of his ear coming visible in the harsh overhead light.

"Sir," she says, stepping into the room. He does not move.

"Commander," she says, taking another step closer. "I want to say…I mean, I need to tell you—"

At this he does turn in her direction, his expression blank and unreadable. Again she questions the wisdom of intruding—but with a rush she decides she doesn't care. Swiftly she slips into the chair beside his desk so that she is facing him.

Now that she is close she sees that he looks different—the way she imagines he looks when he is recovering from an illness…his color pasty, his eyes shadowed.

"You do not need—"

"It's just that I was upset—"

They speak at the same time and fall silent together. He raises one eyebrow ever so lightly— _please continue_.

"When you asked me to write the letter," she begins, hardly daring to meet his gaze, "I should have offered to help. I…wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sorry."

"No apology necessary," he says after a moment, his voice quiet and measured. "I understand that you were…upset."

She takes a breath to reply and is dismayed to find that she cannot speak, that her words are caught in the tourniquet of her throat.

"I was… _upset_ …as well," Spock says, stumbling over the word. He steeples his fingers in front of him.

"Lieutenant Ellison—J.C.," he amends, "was on the _Camden_ by my hand. I suggested that he needed the experience if he wanted to serve one day on the _Enterprise_."

Nyota bobs her head up and swallows.

"The _Enterprise_? J.C.? I didn't know he was interested."

"In our conversations," Spock says, looking away, "he indicated his interest in exploration as an alternative to teaching. I encouraged him to apply for the posting—and I sent a letter of recommendation for him—"

As he speaks his voice becomes strangely distant, and suddenly Nyota understands. How could she have missed it before?

"Sir," she says, but the distance is still there. Spock stares at the black rectangle of night, unmoving. "It isn't your fault."

Nothing. She might as well be speaking from a million parsecs away.

"You did nothing wrong," she says, leaning toward him. "Commander?"

Before she can stop herself, her fingers travel to his forearm and circle it. Even through his sleeve she can feel how hot he is—how fevered. Her touch seems to bring him back and his gaze travels down, first to her hand, and then to her face.

With a self-conscious movement, she pulls her fingers back.

"J.C. died doing what he wanted to do," she says, surprised to find herself able to speak about him without her voice wavering. With relief she realizes that the words— _these words_ —are somehow helping her make sense of her own loss.

"If I had not intervened, he would be here on Earth now, doing his graduate work," Spock says, his eyes still probing hers.

"You can't know that," she says swiftly. "No one's safety is ever guaranteed, no matter where they are. We could walk out into the street and get hit by a bus tonight."

She can tell that her words surprise him—his blank expression softens, his shoulders loosen.

"Your recommendation wasn't the only reason J.C. was on the _Camden_ ," she says. "He wouldn't have gotten the posting if he hadn't actively campaigned for it—and if he hadn't deserved it."

Because she is watching him so intently, she sees a shadow flicker through his expression—and she waits to see if he will explain himself.

"But," he says, blinking slowly—his eyes, dark-fringed and black in the office light, "I asked for special consideration—I sent a letter to Admiral Nefting—"

Scrambling to hide her surprise, Nyota tips her head to draw his attention back.

"You did it because you cared," she says when she knows that he is looking at her again, "You couldn't have known—no one could have known…anything else."

When the sound of her voice stops echoing, they sit for a minute, still and quiet.

"Regret about things you cannot change is…illogical," she says, testing the weight of the word, rolling it on her tongue before looking up at Spock for approval. "It's not enough to mourn the people we lose—"

She pauses, unsure what else she wants to say. And then it comes to her.

"If all we do is mourn, then we can't move forward to celebrate who they were—who they are."

This time her touch is deliberate—a quick squeeze of his arm, and then her hand is drawn back and tucked into her lap.

When Spock meets her gaze, the air in the room is suddenly sucked out and she can hardly breathe.

He moves closer—a fraction, a mile—a wall crumbling between them.

When he is so close that she can see the faint sheen of perspiration across his cheeks, the ghost of a beard along his jawline, he stops and says, so softly that she has to strain to hear, "Thank you, Nyota."

Her heart beats so hard that she hears it in her ears.

"Would you," she stammers, "care to… go get something to drink? Tea, maybe? Or coffee?"

And then he pulls back, though this time the distance is not so far, or frightening, or damaging.

"Another time," he says. _Is his tone regretful? It certainly sounds like it._ "I have something I have to do tonight."

"Another time, then," she says, standing and pausing for a moment.

As she heads back down the stairs she isn't even disappointed. Something—some gulf—that had opened several days ago has closed again, she thinks.

She hopes.

_Thank you, Nyota._

Not Vulcan to human, or commander to cadet.

The next morning the cafeteria opens an hour early to accommodate all of the visitors—family and friends of the crew members being honored at the memorial service. Despite the crowd they are strangely subdued—not surprising, Nyota thinks as she spoons her yogurt and waits for her coffee to cool.

Once she thinks she sees Commander Spock and she sits up straighter to get a better look. No—not him after all, but someone tall and dark and possessed of that same uncommon gravity that draws attention when he walks through a crowded room. Quick and observant, Gaila swivels around and follows her gaze.

"Yep," she says, "it did look like him for a minute."

"Like who?" Nyota says, taking another bite of yogurt.

Instead of answering, Gaila smirks and says, "You better hurry if you want to sit up front."

In fact, Nyota doesn't really want to go at all.

What she wants to do is climb back into bed, pull the covers over her head, and wait until the memorial service is over and the guests are gone.

But she wouldn't do that.

She and Gaila don't sit on the front row but close—on the aisle where she has a clear view of the dais. The auditorium fills up quickly and she notes Admiral Komack and Admiral Nefting among the dignitaries on the stage.

Right before 1100 the bell tower chimes and Nyota feels her eyes watering. She wills herself not to cry. _Later,_ she promises herself. _When I am alone._

She blinks back her tears and takes a shuddering breath—and when she looks at the stage, there is Spock, sitting on the far left.

The service is both Terran and not—a blend of short eulogies about each of the fallen crew members interspersed with music and, as a tribute to the _Camden's_ Nggali engineer, two minutes of hissing static that the program explains is a traditional parting song from his world.

Nyota hears little of anything until Spock stands up, tugs the hem of his jacket, and steps to the lectern.

"My association with Lieutenant J.C. Ellison began 37 months ago when he registered for my perceptional phonemics class," Spock says, his voice magnified by the microphone on the lectern. "Like most of his professors, I was impressed with his quickness of mind and his commitment to Starfleet. Those qualities led me to offer him employment as my student aide his last year at the Academy. When he expressed an interest in serving aboard a starship…"

When he pauses, Nyota catches her breath. To her ear he sounds stressed—his voice strained—his hesitation startling.

"When he expressed an interest—"

The repetition is as shocking as if he had shouted obscenities from the stage. Nyota stiffens and sits bolt upright.

She sees Spock look down for a moment. Although she is too far away to see his features clearly, she has no doubt that his struggle to maintain control is written on his face.

_How shaming for him._

She grips her left hand with her right so tightly that she feels her short, blunt nails digging into her palm.

"Lt. Ellison," Spock says at last, "was an exemplary young cadet and a promising lieutenant who died as he lived, pursuing his goals with determination. His premature death… _feels_...wrong, but his life was not incomplete, even so. Our task, as those who knew him and called him son or brother or colleague or student or friend, is to mourn his loss today and celebrate his life for all the days that are left to us."

Nyota leans back so suddenly in her seat that her feet skid from under her, making a noise that breaks the silence around her. Spock looks in her direction as if the noise has caught his attention before moving back to his chair on the stage.

The service may have ended then or an hour later—Nyota can't say. But when it is finally over—when the last words have been spoken and the last musical notes fade away, she pushes through the crowd and makes her way to the steps at the side of the stage, waiting for Spock to descend.

From the top of the stairs he sees her—their eyes make contact, and without a word, they fall into step and make their way to the outside door.

As soon as they move beyond the people milling on the lawn, Nyota looks up at Spock and says, "That was…your words were…"

For once she is at a loss to know what to say. That hearing Spock confess to a feeling in public is astonishing—and not at all what she thought she knew about Vulcans.

That his eulogy—shorter than most, and less detailed—somehow captured who J.C. was, like an Oriental ideogram, sketched and highlighted, and somehow all the truer for what it did not say.

That for the first time since the accident on the _Camden_ , she is able to think again about space exploration with a modicum of enthusiasm.

"Your words—" she begins, but Spock lifts one hand to stop her.

" _Your_ words," he says.

She smiles—the first time she has in days.

"Is the offer still open?" Spock says, and for a moment she flushes. And then she knows what he means—the evening before…her offer of tea.

"My pleasure," she says, tucking her chin down, careful not to let him see how much more she wishes he could say.

X X X X X X X X X

Vulcans do not lie.

Technically.

Overtly.

But they can deceive. And they know how to dodge the truth.

Which, according to Amanda Grayson, is the same thing as lying.

Lying—the kind that humans do so well—is not possible among people whose touch is a revelation, a door opening into someone's thoughts. Telepathy is a potent truth serum.

Spock remembers learning to lie, at least as his mother calls it, before he started formal school.

One afternoon when Amanda's attention was diverted by an unexpected visit from a neighbor, Spock took apart the subspace radio—something he had longed to do ever since he listened to his mother chatting with her sister in Seattle. That his mother on one planet could speak almost simultaneously to his aunt on another was _fascinating_ — and Spock knew that if he could look inside the radio he would understand how.

As his mother entertained the neighbor with hot tea and fresh fruit slices on the back porch, Spock carefully unscrewed the back plate of the radio and disengaged all of the tubes and wires, laying them side-by-side on the desk.

He felt the tug of his mother's curiosity about his whereabouts and he slipped out of the study and made an appearance on the porch, standing silently while his mother gave him his own small tea cup, drinking it as quickly as possible, and returning to his task of pulling the radio to pieces.

He knew what a condenser was—his father had explained how a regular transceiver worked—but identifying the one in the subspace radio was a challenge. His hand was small enough that he could insert it all the way in the small housing, but after removing most of the components, he was still uncertain which pieces did what.

This long tube, for instance. It amplified sound waves, but what was it connected to? This copper wire? Or this silver one? Clearly he would have to reassemble them and test each one separately.

He was so absorbed in his task that he didn't feel his mother returning—so the sound of her abbreviated shriek when she walked into the study caught him off guard.

"What are you doing!"

Surely she could see what he was doing. Her tone of voice indicated as much—no telltale rise at the end of the sentence signaling a question—something he had learned to recognize from much experience.

If she wasn't asking him _what_ he was doing, she must be asking him _why_.

He felt a flash of pleasure at his successful deduction.

Looking from the placid face of the neighbor to his mother's more expressive one, he said, "I wanted to see how it works."

The neighbor excused herself then—too much excitement, he realized years later when he thought back on it.

"Put it back together—now!" his mother said, one hand fisted at her waist, the other pointing to the disassembled radio. "Cecilia is calling me this evening."

But he wasn't able to. As the afternoon wore on, his mother's frequent trips back into the study to check on his progress began to annoy him. When it became clear to both of them that the subspace radio was really, truly broken, her mood darkened and she sent him to his room.

From there he heard her querulous discussion when his father returned home—his mother's voice pitched and angry, his father's quiet murmur eventually soothing her.

When his father brought the evening meal to his bedroom later, Spock was surprised. _He wasn't allowed to leave his room?_

"Your mother is still upset," Sarek said. "You would do well to stay out of her way for now."

That night as he stretched out on his bed, he tried to feel his mother's presence in his mind and was dismayed that she was so distant. He had not meant to _upset_ her—he was merely indulging his natural inquisitiveness when he took the radio apart. Why was she still angry about it?

"Because she needs to talk to her sister," his father told him when he came to check on him before turning out the lights. "Now she will have to wait until we repair the radio—or replace it. Next time ask before you take something apart if you aren't sure that you can put it back together."

And so he did—and was often refused permission.

Until the water soaker.

The water soaker was a simple instrument—a line of flexible tubing with small holes connected to the well pump, running along the sand from the pump housing to the garden. When a metal bar was turned, the water flowed into the tubing and was dispersed evenly along a line of vegetation. Spock had seen something similar in his aunt's flower gardens on Earth.

One morning before leaving for his office in Shi'Kahr, Sarek tried to adjust the rate of water dispersal by moving the metal bar on the pump in different directions. No luck—the water still flowed so swiftly that the seedlings his mother had set out the day before were swamped.

"I will work on it when I get home," Sarek said, shutting off the water and handing a watering can to Spock. "In the meantime, water the plants by hand."

The day was exceptionally hot and the watering can exceptionally heavy—and before long, Spock set the can down and began examining the pump housing.

The bar that turned the water on and off was rusted and difficult to move, but by putting both hands on it and letting his weight fall forward, his hands outstretched, Spock was able to move the bar enough to get the water flowing again. He kept one eye on the rushing water, and when he judged that the plants had enough, he pushed the bar in the opposite direction.

Nothing. He couldn't budge it.

He turned to the side and shoved his shoulder against the bar. Still nothing.

By now the plants were completely under water, the tiny green leaves barely visible. Spock felt a moment of panic.

He circled the pump housing and tugged at the bar from the other direction. He raised his foot and kicked it.

It did not move.

Alerted by his mounting anxiety, his mother came outside then.

With a quick motion she pulled the bar into position, shutting off the water.

"What are you doing!"

There it was again, that statement disguised as a question.

He thought of the recent cheerless afternoon stuck in his bedroom, the meal eaten alone, his mother's distance.

"Father was trying to fix it," he said.

Not a lie.

And not quite the truth.

His mother tilted her head slightly and squinted at him.

"Your father? He isn't here."

"Before he left," Spock said. He looked up briefly at his mother.

For once her expression was completely blank.

"Are you telling me," his mother said, leaning down to look him in the eye, "that you didn't turn on the water?"

"No," he said.

He knew what his mother meant. She was asking if he turned the water on. He was answering something else entirely: _Are you telling me you didn't?_

Another not-lie. Another not-truth.

Her face, then, crumpled, and he saw the familiar look his father called _upset_ cloud her features.

Without being told, he spent the rest of the day in his room.

That night when his father brought him the evening meal and set it on his desk beside his bed, Spock waited for a scolding that did not come. Instead, Sarek stood and watched him eat, saying little until he was finished.

"Without the truth," Sarek said, "we cannot be in relationships with others."

He heard the words but did not understand them. Through the bond with his father, he knew that one day he would, when he needed to.

X X X X X X

For the first hour after he dismisses her, Spock sits motionless at his desk in his office.

The look on her face—the _upset_ he has caused her.

The distance he has put between them.

Essential, because his control is so poor.

A wave of self-loathing sweeps over him. No wonder T'Pring chooses silence.

Finally he pulls his PADD across the desk and turns it on. The letter to Lt. Ellison's family, then. No use postponing it.

But he sits for another hour, holding the stylus, staring at the black screen.

He sets the stylus on the PADD and puts it back on the corner of his desk. In his top right drawer is a paper pad and a pen that he pulls out. _A list for Nyota_ —things she will need to do tomorrow afternoon when she comes to the office.

Already he knows he will not be here.

_You would do well to stay out of her way._

Back at his apartment he lights the _asenoi_ and makes a cup of tea, but after a single sip he pours the tea down the sink. _An evening meal, perhaps?_ But nothing in the cooler looks appealing, and before he knows it he drifts to the subspace radio in the living area, punching in the code to his parents' number.

When his mother answers he castigates himself immediately—he has obviously woken her up—her hair disheveled and her robe draped awkwardly around her shoulders. In the background he can see the darkened study—he had forgotten that at this time of the year, Vulcan's night correlated closely to Earth's.

"Mother, please," he says, "I apologize. Go back to sleep. I will call another time."

"No, you won't!" his mother says loudly. "I'm awake now. Tell me what's going on."

He takes a breath and considers.

_What's going on._

T'Pring's fidelity is in question.

A gifted young student is dead because he encouraged him to change careers.

His father's health is precarious.

He can hardly focus on preparing the lessons the Academy expects him to teach this week.

Meditation and exercise are useless.

And underneath it all, he is troubled by fantasies so real that they shake him from his sleep—fantasies of reaching out and touching Nyota, pressing his fingers to her own, pulling her close—taking her to his bed—

The night before—

Working out late in the gym, pushing himself through the _suus mahna_ routines until he was soaked with sweat, and falling asleep exhausted, face down on his bed, slipping into a dream that was both lucid and not—part of his mind aware that he was still on his bed, the other completely given up to the slow-motion action conjured up by his fevered brain.

Seeing himself opening his door of his apartment as he had a few days ago, and then inhabiting his own body like an actor taking over a role, feeling the air blowing his face, seeing Nyota standing there, sudden laughter down the hall about to save him from making a terrible mistake—

And then, in the world that was the dream, leaning forward and clasping his arms around her as she turned to leave, feeling her surprise and then her acquiescence as they tumbled back into his apartment, the door shutting on its own behind them—

And then—and then—suddenly in his bed, feeling her cool body under his own, his hands laced in hers, her head tipped up to his, her eyes closing slowly in pleasure, her body arching up to meet his, again and again—

Waking as his body explodes, tangled in the duvet, his clothes sopping, his heart hammering in his side.

Shaken so much that when she came to the office today he had looked at any place where she was not.

_What's going on._

His mother's talent for turning a question into a statement.

"You heard about the _Camden_ ," he says, and his mother frowns and nods.

"My aide from last year, Lieutenant Ellison," Spock says, "was killed."

His mother's hand goes to her mouth, something she often does to hide her shock, which instead draws attention to it.

"I met him," she says, and Spock nods.

"Last year, right before commencement. When you and Father stopped by on your way to Seattle."

"Oh, Spock," his mother says, grief roughing up her voice, "I am so sorry."

He waits a beat and then says, "I have been given the assignment of writing condolences to his family. I find, however, that I am…unable to."

His mother pulls her robe around her tighter—the evening chill clearly setting in—and sighs.

"Just tell the truth," she says, "that he was a fine young man who will be missed."

"But," Spock says, sitting more closely to the screen, as if he can feel his mother's presence there, "he is dead because of my intervention."

With halting cadence he tells his mother about his conversations with J.C., about the suggestion that he apply for a starship posting, his letter to Admiral Nefting—

Amanda interrupts him.

"And you are feeling guilty," she says.

"I am feeling responsible," Spock amends.

"Then what are you asking me?"

"Mother, if I tell his family about the events leading to his death—particularly about my own involvement, they will be… _upset_ —"

"Then don't tell them," Amanda says. "I agree. They will be upset. They don't need to know everything you told me. Just tell them that you are also…upset. That will be enough."

"A lie of omission? I cannot lie," Spock says, and is rewarded by a wry look from his mother.

"Spare me the Vulcan mythology," she says drily. "I know you too well."

The look he gives her in return makes her laugh out loud.

"Is that it?" she says, smiling, and he says, "I believe so."

Something in his posture must give him away, because his mother says, "Are you telling me the truth? Nothing else is bothering you?"

He pauses for a moment.

"Nothing worth mentioning."

When the subspace radio goes blank he continues to sit beside it, pondering.

For the next two days he does little else—going to his office long after midnight to update the lists for Nyota.

_You would do well to stay out of her way._

For many reasons, this is true.

The letter to Lt. Ellison's family goes unwritten—despite his mother's advice, he cannot put the words together.

Perhaps if he simplifies the other concerns in his life…

For the first time in many months he lets his shields down completely as he sits cross-legged in front of the flickering _asenoi_. His father first—he closes his eyes and travels the worn path to his father's consciousness, feeling, as he always does, both relief and mild intimidation at the orderliness there.

The way his father sees the world as a series of equations—his task to weigh them with forethought—not so different from the way Spock views the world, but with less...color? Imagination? Neither word captures what he means, and he leaves that train of thought behind.

His father is feeling some mild distress—post-surgical discomfort, not even rising to the level of pain—but is otherwise doing well, particularly now that he is home and in Amanda's care.

That worry can be set aside—and Spock takes a breath and thinks about his upcoming schedule. A long overdue visit home may be in order—if only to satisfy his mother that he and Sarek are mending—slowly, tentatively—the breach they suffered when Spock chose Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy.

When he opens his eyes the sun is up—he has been meditating for 4 hours and 46 minutes, a long spell even at his most intense. To his surprise he is ravenous—and as soon as he eats the leftover porridge in the cooler, not bothering to heat it up, he falls asleep.

Unlike the vivid sexual dream the night before, his fitful sleep is punctuated by images of Vulcan—places both real and conjured, usually in the company of T'Pring or an unseen someone just out of view. He wakes at noon and showers hurriedly, spending the rest of the afternoon with his computer science class, then slipping back home again, lighting the _asenoi_ and thinking of what he should do next.

The letter to the Ellisons—Spock's PADD sits on the table, unused.

Nyota would know what to say—belatedly he realizes that she must have assumed he was asking her to write the letter for him, not simply offer suggestions. For a moment he considers ringing her comm or tagging a message to her computer.

_Her look of crucifixion when he had sent her away—his uncertainly about what he will do when he sees her again…_

_You would do well to stay out of her way._

_This is T'Pring's fault_ , he thinks and is instantly ashamed of being so irrational. It is true—if their bond were stronger, he would feel anchored to her in a way that would make life…easier. But blaming her for what he feels for Nyota is unfair.

Gently, like someone probing a tender tooth, he calls up the picture of Stonn standing in the door to T'Pring's hotel room—and is flooded again with fury and heat.

His old tormentor's face—almost taunting, clearly insinuating a closeness that T'Pring does not share with Spock.

Waiting until the image fades and his pulse is no longer pounding, Spock does it again—imagines Stonn standing there, and is rewarded with another flash of anger—but this one less intense, more controlled.

Less caring.

And again.

When he can envision T'Pring and Stonn without raising his temperature or his ire, he stops.

They are, after all, doing nothing he hasn't dreamed about, fantasized about, would do with Nyota if regulations didn't stand in the way.

And if he were free from…other obligations as well.

A trip home seems inevitable—perhaps over the summer break, if not before, to speak, at last, to T'Pring, to find out why her presence has dimmed so much that he has to go back through layers of history and effort to find her.

_Without the truth, we cannot be in relationships._

By Friday evening he has been able to do what he once heard a colleague describe as _compartmentalizing_ —setting aside all concerns in favor of the one most pressing. Tomorrow is the memorial service—he really is out of time. Not only does he need to write the letter for the Ellisons, he has agreed to participate in the service with a eulogy—something he had initially refused.

After Nyota had left his office—after he had sent her away—he had called Admiral Komack and said he had reconsidered. If the Admiral was surprised, he did not show it, simply saying, "I see," before signing off.

But now that action feels impulsive and ill-advised. What can he say—in the letter or at the service—that will not bring more pain? The truth is too full—but not telling it is unthinkable.

The language building is dark when he arrives—and he feels a relief that catches him off guard. He really doesn't want to see anyone—not Professor Artura, who might make some mystifying comment about his recent absence, and assuredly not Nyota.

In his office he turns on his computer and sits with his back to the door, cataloging the random creaks and whirs of the building as he checks his mail.

There, in the distance, he hears the click of the outside door bolt pulled back.

Her footsteps—sharp and purposeful, the heel of her boot hitting the metal strike bar on the edge of the steps before the ball of each foot rolls forward, up and up, three flights.

At the top of the landing she pauses—and he knows that she sees that the office lights are on.

For a moment all he can hear is her breathing, slightly labored from her rush up the stairs.

And then she comes toward him.

He settles his own breathing and turns so that she will not see his face until he is sure he can look at her with equanimity.

Her footsteps halt and he tips his head slightly, waiting.

"Sir," she says, stepping into the room. He does not move.

"Commander," she says, taking another step closer. "I want to say…I mean, I need to tell you—"

At this he does turn in her direction, keeping his expression as neutral as he can—a struggle, because seeing her, her brows furrowed, her arms held close to her body, makes his heart race. Suddenly she slips into the chair beside his desk so that she is facing him.

"You do not need—"

"It's just that I was upset—"

They speak at the same time and fall silent together. He raises one eyebrow ever so lightly— _please continue_.

"When you asked me to write the letter," she begins, "I should have offered to help. I…wasn't thinking clearly. I'm sorry."

"No apology necessary," he says, thinking of the letter, still unwritten. "I understand that you were…upset."

She takes a breath but says nothing. _His turn._

"I was… _upset_ …as well," Spock says, stumbling over the word. He steeples his fingers in front of him.

_Without the truth, we cannot be in relationships._

"Lieutenant Ellison—J.C.," he continues, "was on the _Camden_ by my hand. I suggested that he needed the experience if he wanted to serve one day on the _Enterprise_."

Nyota bobs her head up and swallows.

"Sir," she says, "it isn't your fault."

 _Sir._ Her use of the word highlights the reason for the distance between them. Regulations. Obligations.

"You did nothing wrong," she says, leaning toward him. "Commander?"

Although he is looking out the window, he senses her motion as she reaches toward him. He turns to look at her fingers on his arm, his gaze traveling down, first to her hand, and then to her face.

Abruptly, she pulls her fingers back.

"J.C. died doing what he wanted to do," she says, her voice unwavering. She is still upset—but something in her tone signals a sea change in her control.

"If I had not intervened, he would be here on Earth now, doing his graduate work," Spock says, his eyes still probing hers.

"You can't know that," she says swiftly. "No one's safety is ever guaranteed, no matter where they are. We could walk out into the street and get hit by a bus tonight."

He flashes back to a day several weeks ago when they had walked from the art gallery—he refraining from holding out his arm to force her to pause at a busy intersection as a hover bus skimmed by so close that even now, in his imagination, he can feel the prickle of the ionized particles of its lifters.

"Your recommendation wasn't the only reason J.C. was on the _Camden_ ," she says. "He wouldn't have gotten the posting if he hadn't actively campaigned for it—and if he hadn't deserved it."

"But," Spock says, getting at last to the source of his greatest distress, "I asked for special consideration—I sent a letter to Admiral Nefting—"

 _Pulling strings—something he will never do again_.

"You did it because you cared," Nyota says when he meets her eye. "You couldn't have known—no one could have known…anything else."

When the sound of her voice stops echoing, they sit for a minute, still and quiet.

"Regret about things you cannot change is…illogical," she says. "It's not enough to mourn the people we lose…..If all we do is mourn, then we can't move forward to celebrate who they were—who they are."

She touches him again—her fingers pressing his arm, causing his heart to lurch unexpectedly. When she pulls her hand away, he feels bereft.

Her touch is a human impulse to reassure him—he knows that, but he wants it to mean something more.

He moves closer, uncertain what he will do.

When his face is so close to hers that he can see the tiny mole on her neck, the damp curl escaping the clip in her hair, he pauses, so quiet that he can hear her pulse, her shallow breaths, the flick of her eyelash as she blinks.

"Thank you, Nyota."

_Without the truth…_

"Would you," she stammers, "care to… go get something to drink? Tea, maybe? Or coffee?"

… _we cannot be in relationships._

"Another time," he says, sitting back up _._ "I have something I have to do tonight."

"Another time, then," she says, standing and pausing for a moment, her smile conferring on him some sort of forgiveness.

As her footsteps echo down the hall, he pulls his PADD close and starts on the words he needs for tomorrow.

From his place in the wing of the stage the next morning, Spock watches the other presenters arriving and finding their chairs. The auditorium fills up quickly, and as the bell tower chimes 1100, he makes his way to his seat near the curtain.

The service is disturbing—paradoxically sentimental and clinical in a way that makes the eulogies sound false. Some presenters speak at length about the achievements and accomplishments of the dead—reducing them to their actions. Others speak of the dead as victims of circumstance—as though nothing else is worth noting.

When his time to speak arrives, he isn't sure what he will say.

"My association with Lieutenant J.C. Ellison began 37 months ago when he registered for my perceptional phonemics class," Spock says into the silence of the filled auditorium. "Like most of his professors, I was impressed with his quickness of mind and his commitment to Starfleet. Those qualities led me to offer him employment as my student aide his last year at the Academy. When he expressed an interest in serving aboard a starship…"

But these words are not true.

Or, they are the details, but they are not the _truth_ of J.C.

"When he expressed an interest—" Spock says again.

He stops.

J.C. is not a list of achievements, a chronology of events.

Nothing that he has prepared is what he wants to say. He looks down for a moment, studying the grain of the wooden lectern beneath his hands, steadying himself.

"Lt. Ellison," Spock says at last, "was an exemplary young cadet and a promising lieutenant who died as he lived, pursuing his goals with determination. His premature death… _feels_...wrong, but his life was not incomplete, even so. Our task, as those who knew him and called him son or brother or colleague or student or friend, is to mourn his loss today and celebrate his life for all the days that are left to us."

There. The truth—less than he might have told, and as much as needed to be said. He sits back down and waits for the service to wind down.

When the last words have been spoken and the last musical notes fade away, Spock looks up and sees Nyota making her way to the steps at the side of the stage, waiting for him to descend.

Without a word, they fall into step and make their way to the outside door.

Moving beyond the people milling on the lawn, Nyota looks up at Spock and says, "That was…your words were…"

If he can never touch her, at least he can find pleasure in hearing her—her bright intelligence, each word freighted with care—

"Your words—" she begins, but Spock lifts one hand to stop her.

" _Your_ words," he says.

Her smile is a benediction.

 _The dream_ —the memory of it stirs him with heat and he struggles to set it aside.

"Is the offer still open?" Spock says, thinking of his dream arms tugging her into his bed—but knowing that she will think of tea.

His words are not quite the truth, not quite a lie.

"My pleasure," she says, tucking her chin down, not seeing how hard he has to work to keep his hands clasped chastely behind his back.

**A/N: For everyone willing to slog your way through such long chapters—my gratitude. For everyone willing to leave a comment, my double gratitude!**


	12. Telepathy

**Chapter Twelve: Telepathy**

**Disclaimer: Alas, all borrowed, except the mischief.**

She _feels_ his eyes on her before she ever sees him.

 _Or maybe not._ Heading out of the cafeteria building, Nyota stops at the bottom of the steps and lets the students exiting the building part around her.

A quick scan up the hill to where the quad opens out—but no Spock. She must be imagining things.

Another symptom of what Gaila cheekily calls _the flu_.

"You really ought to let a medic have a look at you," Gaila said earlier at breakfast as she slid into a chair at the end of the long table where Nyota sat listlessly nibbling a bagel and watching the newsfeed on the oversized monitors mounted on the cafeteria wall.

"What are you talking about?" Nyota said, looking down at Gaila's hand. Her Orion roommate opened her fist under Nyota's nose and said, "Here. You left it in the room—again. And your appetite's off," she said, pointing to the half-eaten bagel. "Definitely _the_ _flu_."

With a rueful grin, Nyota had taken her comm from Gaila's palm and pocketed it.

"I'm just busy," she said, deliberately taking another bite from the bagel.

"Uh huh," Gaila said. "Don't lie to me. I recognize _the flu_ when I see it."

But Nyota _is_ busy—with exams on the horizon, the lab is often full. And her own research project for her psycholinguistics class is stalled. When she can, she needs to schedule an appointment with her professor to talk about it—but Captain Spaulding's office hours are the same ones she works for Spock. Finding time…

She reaches the top of the rise and steps out onto the path leading across the quad.

There he is. His eyes on her, striding forward in a way that makes his destination clear.

Spock is coming directly to her.

She would have seen him in a few moments anyway at the language building—but here he is, unexpected, and her stomach gives a flip.

 _The flu_ indeed.

Hurrying toward him, Nyota flashes a smile and says, "Fancy seeing you here, Commander."

It's the kind of patter they have fallen into the last few days—teasing with an overtone of friendliness—or something more. But today Spock's expression remains impassive—not surprising, considering they are in public—but disconcerting, nonetheless.

"I hoped to find you," he says, his face still a mask, and Nyota smiles hesitantly. "I have need of your assistance."

"I was just on my way to the office," she says as he tips his hand to the left, an invitation to follow him. They start down a path headed away from the language building. "You didn't have to come fetch me. You could have called."

At that she sees him look down at her and lift one eyebrow.

"Oh," she says, suddenly understanding. She tugs her comm out of her pocket and says, "I haven't turned it on."

She does then, and the screen immediately lights up. Three missed calls—two from him. At once she is alarmed.

"What is it?"

Instead of answering, Spock steps off the paved path and takes a shortcut across the lawn to a transport station stop.

"An emergency meeting with the dean. Your services as translator may be required," he says when she catches up.

His posture is more alarming than the import of his words—stiff and… _wary_ , as if he expects trouble. She falls silent and they wait until a small hover bus pulls up less than a minute later.

Standing beside the door of the bus, Spock waits for Nyota to mount the steps first. She casts her glance around at the crowded interior and sees two places facing inward near the back window. Sliding into one seat, she looks up and waits for Spock to follow her.

Instead of sitting down, however, he eyes the place beside her and continues to stand, grasping the utility bar overhead, planting his feet firmly as the bus lurches forward.

A wave of disappointment washes over her—his refusal to sit down feeling like a personal affront. It shouldn't, she knows. The seats are close—and they would probably brush shoulders if they were seated side by side.

Touch telepaths must see personal space differently than she does. Nyota remembers Gaila's recent scolding— _stop expecting him to act like a human._

For a few minutes she distracts herself by looking at the other passengers, any place other than looking up at Spock. The majority are red-uniformed cadets standing in the center of the bus, keeping their distance.

Two off-world faculty are also present, both humanoids she does not recognize, who rise from their seats and exit as soon as the bus stops.

The administration building is close to the north gate of the Academy on the far side of the campus from everything else, which usually isn't much of a problem. Nyota can count on one hand the number of times she's needed to go there. She follows Spock through the ornate front doors and down the hallway to a large conference room. Already it is half-full—and with a start, Nyota realizes that almost everyone there is an off-worlder.

The faculty at the Academy are a mix of service personnel on rotation and civilians, many who are visiting professors and researchers from other areas in the quadrant. Professor Artura, for example, the Andorian linguist whose office is down the hall from Spock's—has been at the Academy for three years and plans to stay at least two more before returning to his work for the Andorian diplomatic corps.

Looking around, Nyota sees Professor Artura sitting near the opposite door, one blue antenna tilted in obvious concentration as another Andorian—much younger than the Professor—speaks in animated bursts.

Clearly the people assembled here are agitated—and Nyota feels her heart racing. _What has happened?_

At the far end of the conference room is a table topped with what from here she can tell is translation equipment—three large computers with microphones angled to the side, a stack of PADDs and recorders, and a large blue disc aimed at the ceiling.

Spock motions her forward and she heads to the table. Sitting behind it are two uniformed officers, both who look relieved as she and Spock approach.

"This is my aide, Cadet Uhura," Spock says without preamble. "Her xenolinguistics skills are exemplary."

He moves away as one of the lieutenants says, "Welcome aboard, cadet. We can use you."

For a few minutes she loses track of Spock as she settles behind one of the computers and listens as the lieutenant—a thin, dark woman with short dreadlocks—explains how the transcription feed is monitored.

"If all of the alien staff are here," the lieutenant says, "we have 43 different languages to monitor. The autotranslator is fine for most—and most of the professors are competent enough in Standard not to have to rely on any translation at all. But we have a few—"

Nyota watches as the lieutenant punches up a series of numbers on the screen, opening another view.

"Here," she says, pointing to a wiggly red line across the left hand side of the monitor. "Denobulans don't perceive sound waves and have to have a visual translation. We're still learning the language ourselves—the parameters are roughed in, but you will need to track what the computer is doing and compensate if you see any gross errors. The odds are you won't—but another pair of eyes will help."

"Exactly what are we—" Nyota begins, but just then the dean walks in and the room falls silent.

"I apologize," the dean says, his voice amplified by the microphone mounted on the lectern, "for calling this meeting without more warning, but I felt you needed to have all the information as soon as possible. You may have heard by now that yesterday on the floor of the Federation Council, one member called for an investigation into the alleged sabotage of the _U.S.S. Camden_."

Nyota is stunned. More than a week ago the _Camden_ had ruptured a baffle plate during an ion storm. _Sabotage? Is it possible?_

She lifts her eyes briefly from the computer monitor and finds Spock sitting on the aisle two rows back. His expression is sober.

As if he can sense her looking at him, he flicks his gaze to her for a second.

_Sabotage?_

_Did he know about this?_

"Admiral Barnett testified concerning our findings," the dean continues. A large man with graying hair, the dean leans heavily onto the lectern and says, "No intelligence suggests that the _Camden_ was subjected to any sabotage. However, in light of recent…incidents…the Council is obliged to take up the matter for investigation."

So that's what this is about, Nyota thinks. In the past month alien smugglers have twice been caught ferrying explosives through the lunar docking station. The first time a small skiff registered to a trader from Makus IV was searched after authorities were tipped off. The second time an unannounced search turned up traces of the same explosive in the hold of a barge headed to Deneva.

Except for the similarities in the explosives, nothing else about the two incidents suggests a connection.

But a grass roots organization hostile to any alien involvement on earth jumped on the news stories and has been loud in their opposition.

Now, Nyota thinks, they are exploiting the _Camden_ for their own purposes, suggesting a cause and effect just to promote their own brand of xenophobia.

The idea makes her furious.

The dean takes such a deep breath that the monitors from the recordings show a spike. Nyota looks up and is startled to see him flushing, visibly angry.

"And now," he says, "it is my unpleasant duty to ask you to read the loyalty oath headquarters is requiring for all non-Terran faculty. It should be on your screens—"

From the corner of her eye Nyota sees the dean turning to the translators sitting behind the table.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant says. Nyota taps her screen to double check the Denobulan translation scrolling by.

The words themselves are neither offensive nor inflammatory. That the alien faculty are having to sign them _is_.

Nyota feels her throat tighten and her cheeks grow hot.

"Questions?" the dean asks.

The young Andorian sitting beside Professor Artura speaks first.

"Are my Terran colleagues required to sign?"

The dean hesitates before answering.

"As you see," he says, "the wording specifically mentions that the signer is non-Terran. The rest of the faculty may be required to sign a loyalty oath, but I assume it will not be this exact one."

"Then you do not know," the Andorian says, and Nyota sees the dean blink twice and look down. He's embarrassed to have to answer, "No, I don't."

"Why now?"

This from a small alien with wrinkled purple skin and a shock of dark purple fur covering its short, stubby forearms.

"The grassroots organization known as Earth United has asked for it," the dean says, squinting into the distance. "They've been around for a few years but have never been that vocal until now. They obviously have friends on the Federation Council, and Starfleet is feeling pressured to comply. Any other questions?"

When she hears Spock's voice, Nyota feels her heart jump into her throat.

"What are the consequences for failing to sign?"

"For civilians," the dean says slowly, "revocation of tenure and termination. For Starfleet officers—general court martial and dismissal."

The room erupts into a buzz of noise that the dean does not try to control. He steps back from the lectern and looks across the room, waiting. When the room quiets again, he steps back to the mike and says, "If you wish to sign now, you may do so. Otherwise, you have until the 18th to decide. Thank you."

With that, the dean turns abruptly and leaves the conference room. The faculty members get up, some lingering over their terminals, others heading directly up the aisle.

"Thank you," Nyota hears the lieutenant at her elbow saying, but she is busy watching Spock make his way toward the table. She stands and they head out the back door.

"Did you know about this?" Nyota says when they are clear of the administration building.

"I suspected," Spock says, his face once more an impenetrable mask.

Suddenly Nyota can hardly bear to see his face this calm. Her own face, she knows, is pinched with dismay. If they head back to the office now, their conversation will be constrained and dishonest—not full of the sound and fury she is feeling.

"Let's get away," she says, almost touching him but stopping herself short, her hand an inch from his own. "Some place off campus."

He reacts then—the expression on his features shifting with surprise.

"I mean," Nyota says, belatedly recognizing the suggestiveness of her words, "for coffee. Or tea. At a teashop. Somewhere close by."

She realizes that she is babbling but cannot stop.

Heat rises up her torso and neck and makes her brow sweaty. "I'm just— _upset_ about this whole thing."

Not quite the truth, not quite a lie.

She _is_ upset, but at this moment, more so with herself for giving in to the symptoms of _the flu_.

At the teashop across the street from the north gate she orders at the counter while Spock stakes out two chairs for them in the corner table near a window. The teashop is surprisingly crowded with cadets, many who are sitting alone, hunched over their PADDs or talking on their comms. In a few minutes a tall boy with bright red hair cut short and spikey brings them a pot of tea and two porcelain cups.

To her surprise Nyota is unsure how to begin.

"Your help was—"

"I hope you don't mind—"

Lately they have started doing this—beginning sentences together and having to pause, dancing linguistically around each other. _You first. No, you._

Spock tilts his head fractionally and Nyota starts again.

"I hope you don't mind getting away from the campus for a few minutes," she says, pouring herself a cup of tea and lifting it gently to her lips. "I wanted to…tell you that I'm sorry…about everything."

Here she is babbling again. The heat rising to her cheeks is not just from the tea.

"Everything?"

 _Damn Vulcan precision._ She tries to smile.

"The oath. The racism behind it. Starfleet shouldn't cave in to public pressure that way."

"If the Federation Council calls for it, they have no choice," Spock says, his face still unreadable.

"But you don't approve!"

"My… _feelings_ …on the matter are not relevant."

"Yes, they are!" she says, putting her cup down so swiftly that the tea sloshes over the side. "You are being singled out for unfair treatment! It's an injustice, and you don't have to like it!"

Spock says nothing, but she sees something change in his eyes—a lightening of his mood, a letting go of something held tight. She presses her advantage.

"You could file a grievance—or have the civilian faculty petition for redress. What's next? This Earth United group could have your visa revoked. You'd have to leave—"

"That hardly seems likely."

"But it could—"

"Logically almost anything _could_ happen," Spock says, his eyes still locked on hers. "But Starfleet would resist losing a large number of faculty—"

"They aren't resisting the mistreatment of those same faculty now! What happens if one day you find out that…that…you're being sent back to Vulcan? What about your career? Your…life here?"

Hearing herself say it embarrasses her—the bareness of the words, the honesty of her real worry.

Cradling his cup, Spock looks into his tea and says, "That is an unlikely scenario. At any rate, I hold dual citizenship. Deporting me would be difficult."

Dual citizenship! She is so surprised that she says nothing. Perhaps as a commander in Starfleet he has been granted it.

 _Pick your battles._ She hears her mother's often-given advice, usually after Nyota had bent her ear with a long tale about some perceived injustice—a friend whose mother imposed an excessive curfew, a school assignment graded with a skewed rubric, a newsfeed story about a petition to free a political prisoner on Arcturus Med'eva.

 _Your help isn't always wanted_ , her mother would say _._

"Well, what about Professor Artura? Couldn't he be sent home—if this group is able to deport all aliens from Earth?"

"I have no idea what would happen to Professor Artura," Spock says, meeting her gaze again. "We have never discussed his legal status."

Without lowering his eyes, he sets his cup back on the table and says, "Your worry is premature. Nothing may happen yet."

An image of an older couple glaring at them comes to mind—another place, another cup of tea—an image from a few weeks ago, wasn't it? At the time she hadn't understood their hostility. Now she thinks she knows.

_Pick your battles._

"I just feel so…helpless," Nyota says.

"You were helpful today," Spock says.

Nyota snorts.

"That was nothing," she says. "I just kept an eye on a monitor. That lieutenant could have handled it on her own. She didn't really need me."

Spock looks down then, circling his thumb and forefinger through the handle of the cup, lifting it almost tenderly and taking a slow sip.

"You were needed," he says.

There it is again—that same odd sense of being watched—or being _known_ —even when his eyes are not on her.

Almost as if they could speak without words—or like now, as if every word does double duty, meaning more than they can say aloud.

X X X X X X

The first time his parents separated, Spock was only three years, nine months, and two days old and had no opinion on the matter. That his mother was taking him to live with her on Earth was no more remarkable than the fact that a few days before they had been living on Vulcan with his father. The new situation was no more or less real than the other. It simply _was_.

Which was not to say that is wasn't less pleasant. Life on Vulcan had been walks in the warm garden with his Mother, _ka'athryra_ lessons in the evenings with his father, the familiar smells of vegetable curries wafting from the kitchen.

Life on Earth was fog droplets so large that they chilled him every morning, food so dry and coarse that he spit it out, half-chewed, when his mother's back was turned, his grandmother dourly eyeing him and saying, "Doesn't he talk?"

"He talks," his mother said, a prickliness in her voice that he recognized. At home when he took things apart— _broke them_ , as his mother called it—she used this tone of voice with him. "He's quiet now because he's… _upset_."

His mother's word— _upset_. Lately she had frequently been _upset_ —with him, with his father, with the people they met in the medical center or the retail shopping areas—strangers who cast odd glances at him or who turned quickly to each other, their voices dropping into whispers.

Or the ones who did not bother to whisper but made their comments aloud, as though he and his mother were deaf.

"It isn't working here," he heard his mother say one night as he lay in bed, his father's voice low and indistinct. And then his mother's voice took on an unusual quality that meant she was crying. He put his hands to his ears and pressed as hard as he could.

On Earth at his grandmother's house he frequently stopped whatever he was doing and reached out to feel his father's presence. Sarek was there, concern and worry and affection through their bond. Reassured that he wasn't forgotten, Spock would resume whatever he had been doing—taking apart a puzzle, or scrolling through a book about Earth animals, or taking apathetic nibbles from a carrot.

"Doesn't he talk?" his grandmother said at those moments, and Spock felt his mother's irritation again, and her nudge to be more sociable.

But it was hard, and as a week turned into a month, and a month turned into two, he grew inward, blocking his mother's attempts to cajole or comfort him.

"He's just upset," Amanda said when her sister Cecilia took him to her office and ran him though her medical scanners. "He misses his father."

"And you don't?" Cecilia said, glancing at Amanda before shining a light into Spock's eyes and pressing her fingers on his brow.

Instead of answering, Amanda put her hand to her mouth and looked away.

"You can't say you weren't warned," he heard his grandmother say one night—his mother's part of the conversation out of his hearing—but he knew that he was the topic.

That he was the reason they were here on Earth.

The reason his mother had left his father behind.

Not everything about living at his grandmother's house was unpleasant. Just in her backyard were more varieties of flora and fauna than lived on all of Vulcan—he simply had to sweep his hand across a single swathe of grass to uncover three different types of beetles, for instance.

And at least once a week his aunt Cecilia and her husband David brought their three children for a visit—their noise and bustle clearly distressing their grandmother but intriguing their Vulcan cousin.

But mostly he tried to feel nothing—or at least not _homesick_ , as his aunt Cecilia had pronounced.

His mother, on the other hand, seemed to feel quite a lot—and seemed to be more emotional, not less, as their stay on Earth turned into a third month.

When his father showed up one afternoon at his grandmother's door, Spock was not surprised. An hour later when his mother told him to pack up his things because they were going home, he was not surprised.

He was relieved.

The second time they separated, Spock was very surprised indeed. This time he had just turned 17 and was preparing for his final year of school before applying to the Vulcan Science Academy.

He had spent his birthday alone—his parents were away on a diplomatic mission to Edgewan, a planet petitioning for enrollment in the Federation—but he hadn't minded. The quiet was soothing—and he was never really lonely. Anytime he liked he could feel the undercurrent of his parents' presence, and of T'Pring, too, though they rarely saw each other. The month he spent at his house was a time of reflection and rest before the last big push of school.

Both Amanda and Sarek had looked tired when they returned, though Spock could sense his mother's excitement and he spent several afternoons listening to her recount her impressions of the people of Edgewan.

"It was so different from here," she said, "and even from Earth. As near as anyone can tell, the planet was completely barren until a millennia ago—no native plants or animals—nothing."

"But," Spock protested, "you said the animal life there was even more plentiful than on Earth."

" _Now_ it is," Amanda said, smiling smugly. "But everything there—even all the people—are immigrants from somewhere else. And what a mix! Apparently, many of the early space-going races ended up colonizing there. It was wonderful to be in a place where _everything_ is so heterogeneous!"

He recognized his mother's comment as what it was—a veiled criticism of Vulcan society.

"The best part," Amanda told him later, "was that your father really needed me there. For the first time I didn't feel like something ornamental. The Edgewans wouldn't even talk to the other Vulcan diplomats. Just your father."

She laughed at Spock's quizzical expression and added, "His human wife, you see—his obvious commitment to the diversity they value. I ended up being invited to a thousand parties—"

"23," Sarek amended from his place on the sofa in the study.

"One thousand and 23," Amanda said, laughing. "And of course, Ambassador Sarek was invited, too—and not one of those other Vulcans was allowed to come along—"

His mother's high spirits lasted several days—until one evening his father came home and told her that Stelon had been promoted to chief negotiator.

"But you're overdue for a promotion!" Amanda had protested loudly. "And Stelon did nothing on Edgewan! There must be a mistake. That isn't fair!"

"The decision has been made," Sarek said, the discussion over.

Except that for Amanda it was not.

"That's three times you've been skipped over," she said. "You are being singled out. The Council needs to know—"

"The Council knows," Sarek said evenly. "The head of the Council spoke to me personally."

"Then why—"

But his mother did not finish her question. Instead, her face had blanched and then flushed—her hue shifting from pale to ruddy in a few moments.

"Sarek," she said at last, "this is nothing more than simple racism. You have to protest—"

"As I said," Sarek said, his voice steely now, "the decision has been made, Amanda. There is nothing more I can do."

"Don't tell me that!" she said loudly. "If you say nothing—if you wink and nod at their prejudice—how do you think that makes me feel? Or Spock? What kind of future does he have if no one ever challenges them? You have to pick your battles, Sarek! They aren't going to change on their own! Don't give me high words about logic and reason—I know better!"

Spock had been so astounded that he had said nothing—had watched the drama unfold from his chair near the door of the living area. As his mother stormed past him he tried to make eye contact, but she looked resolutely ahead. A moment later he heard her bedroom door slam.

Sarek stood in the center of the room, his arms at his side, before turning and leaving the house. A sudden mechanical roar—and his father left in the flitter and did not return for several hours.

When Spock got back home from his music lesson the next day, his mother was gone and his father was taciturn.

"She's visiting her family," was all Sarek would say, but that night when Spock had trouble feeling her presence he dialed Cecilia's number on the subspace radio.

"I don't know when I'll be home," Amanda said, her voice tired, her face drawn. "I have some things I have to sort out."

And then, almost as an afterthought, she said, "This isn't about you, Spock. This is between me and your father."

But he recognized a lie when he heard it. She had taught him that.

They spoke every few days, and each time, his mother sounded as distant and weary as she had at first.

In the meantime, he and his father fell into a routine at home—waking early and making a rudimentary breakfast together, and then heading in their different directions—Sarek to his office in Shi'Kahr, Spock to a study group that met regularly to plan research projects for the upcoming school year.

At night their schedule was reversed, coming back to a dark house, cadging together a cold evening meal. And then watching or reading the newsfeeds, sometimes in each other's company, but just as often, in different rooms, alone.

Spock felt his mother's absence keenly—both in the house and through their bond.

For three weeks they lived this way.

And then one afternoon Spock came home and found his father already there.

"I'm going to get your mother," he said simply, carrying a small piece of luggage from the bedroom to the hall.

"She called?"

"No," Sarek said, opening the outside door, "but I am picking this battle."

As he was pulling the door closed behind him, he looked back at his astonished son and added, "I need her. _We_ need her."

X X X X X X X

"What's going on?" Chris asks, his voice tinny over the comm. Spock takes the receiver from his ear and adjusts the sound modulator until the feedback disappears.

"Specify," he says, knowing that Chris will complain that he is being excessively _Vulcan_ —a code word Chris coined years ago to mean _stubborn and obscure._

"You know what I mean," Chris says with just a hint of impatience. "The flack in the Council meeting yesterday—that wacko group calling for expulsion of aliens. It's all over the news. What did your father say?"

"Sarek was not at the Council meeting," Spock says. "He had surgery six days ago and is home."

Even over the comm Spock can hear the intake of Chris' breath.

"How is he—"

"Recovering well," Spock interrupts. At the corner of his computer monitor he sees a note flashing, an indication to check his mail for a message from the dean. "I must go. I will call you later."

Without waiting for a reply, he snaps off the comm. In one corner of his consciousness he knows his mother would have disapproved— _you have to pay attention to other people's feelings_ , she often says—but Chris has never needed him to be anything other than who he is.

Some day he needs to tell him how much he values that.

The note from the dean is not unexpected, particularly after the newsfeed reports yesterday.

The group calling itself Earth United has started holding rallies across the country demanding a review of immigration policies. They make no secret of their dislike of off-worlders and their suspicion of the Federation.

When they began suggesting the idea that the _Camden_ was sabotaged by aliens based on Earth, Spock knew Starfleet would have to respond publicly. The emergency meeting with the dean, then, is not a surprise.

What is a surprise is that only the off-world faculty are asked to attend.

Calling up the daily duty roster, he sees that two lieutenants from the language pool are listed. If all of the off-world faculty need translation services, they will be hard-pressed to comply. _Nyota_.

With a flick of his thumb he dials her but gets her voice mail. Again—and still no answer.

He does something then that he thinks about later, as he sits before his _asenoi_ that night and meditates.

He reaches out and looks for her.

They are not bonded in any way a Vulcan would recognize—yet since that day in his office when he kept her from falling, he has been able to _see_ her—as though his fingers were still around her waist, holding her up, his mind briefly, lightly, touching hers.

Impossible.

Or rather, improbable.

Still, he can't deny what he… _feels_.

From long practice he keeps the bond with his parents at bay—partitioned out of his conscious thought like voices in a distant room, indistinct, even mute at times, but always available if he wants to examine them closer.

This… _thing_ …that he senses with Nyota—it is not the same, not a looped connection, but a vague uneasy wariness when she is absent from his life.

Without having a specific destination in mind, he closes up his apartment and heads across campus to the main quad. It's too early for her to be in the lab, so he doesn't stop there.

Walking on past the language building, he suddenly knows—she is finishing her morning meal and will be in the cafeteria.

A logical deduction—that's all. Nothing more.

And yet—he is _sure_ she is there, with a certainty that is not logical.

She could, after all, be in her dorm, or running a simulation in the psycholinguistics lab. Or any number of things this time of the morning.

But she's not. He knows it.

At the top of the gentle rise near the cafeteria he sees her starting onto the paved path.

The uneasiness he feels when they are apart dissipates at once.

Hurrying toward him, Nyota flashes a smile and says, "Fancy seeing you here, Commander."

It's the kind of patter they have fallen into the last few days—teasing with an overtone of friendliness—or something more. No one seems to have overheard her, but he hides his amusement just in case. No use inviting any sort of censure for being overly familiar.

"I hoped to find you," he says. "I have need of your assistance."

"I was just on my way to the office," she says as they start down a path headed away from the language building. "You didn't have to come fetch me. You could have called."

Thinking of the two unanswered calls earlier, he looks down at her as they head toward the transport station.

"Oh," she says. She tugs her comm out of her pocket and says, "I haven't turned it on."

She does then, and the screen immediately lights up. Glancing up in alarm, she says, "What is it?"

Instead of answering, Spock calculates the speed of their forward motion and the distance to the nearest transport stop. If they catch the bus due in 73 seconds from now, they can make it to the administration building on the north side of campus with time to spare before the meeting.

When Nyota catches up with him, he says, "An emergency meeting with the dean. Your services as translator may be required."

The bus arrives five seconds behind schedule—not a problem if the driver compensates with extra speed. Allowing himself a small pleasure, he watches Nyota mount the bus steps ahead of him, her fluid motion pulling him along in her wake.

The seat she chooses is large enough for them both. The slope of her shoulder, the curve of her elbow, the bend of her knee—invitations he forces himself to ignore. Instead, he turns toward the front of the bus and holds on the utility bar as they start moving.

When they debark at the administration building, he leads the way to the ornamental front doors. Nyota hesitates, as if she is unsure where to go, but once they are inside the building, she straightens and heads down the hall toward the noise coming from the conference room.

Seated throughout the large room at tables equipped with computer terminals are the off-world Academy faculty. Although he has not personally spoken to many of them, particularly in areas outside the computer science and language departments, Spock recognizes all but two—new hires who sit solemnly in the back of the room.

His colleague Professor Artura is sitting near the opposite door, one blue antenna tilted in obvious concentration as another Andorian—much younger than the Professor—speaks in animated bursts.

At the far end of the conference room are the two lieutenants whose names were listed on the duty roster. In front of them is a table with an assortment of translation equipment, none which looks unfamiliar. Nyota should have no trouble.

He senses her at his elbow and he motions her forward. Both of the lieutenants are former students—both look up as he approaches the table.

"This is my aide, Cadet Uhura," Spock says without preamble. "Her xenolinguistics skills are exemplary."

Moving away, he hears one of the lieutenants say, "Welcome aboard, cadet. We can use you."

"What's this about?" the K'r'than specialist in neural-net computing says, waving Spock over. "I had to cancel a class to be here. Quite indefensible, all this trouble."

Her voice is a mix of glottal stops and hisses which Spock normally finds fascinating to parse, but today the K'r'than is noticeably upset and her voice almost impossible to decipher.

Instinctively Spock backs away but then reconsiders, forcing himself to pause.

_You have to pay attention to other people's feelings._

"Indeed," Spock says. "I believe I hear the dean coming now."

Settling himself in a seat on the aisle, Spock looks up and sees Nyota busy behind the translation table. Although she doesn't notice him, he feels oddly reassured that she is close by.

If he is honest with himself, this is the real reason he sought her out and asked her to come.

He will have to meditate about that later.

"I apologize," the dean says, stepping to the lectern and leaning down to speak into the microphone, "for calling this meeting without more warning, but I felt you needed to have all the information as soon as possible. You may have heard by now that yesterday on the floor of the Federation Council, one member called for an investigation into the alleged sabotage of the _U.S.S. Camden_."

A ripple of noise flutters through the faculty. Apparently many of the staff have been caught off guard. Spock tilts his head to catch a glimpse of Nyota, her bottom lip caught by her top teeth, something she does when she concentrates.

As if she can feel his gaze, she looks up at him.

"Admiral Barnett testified concerning our findings," the dean continues. "No intelligence suggests that the _Camden_ was subjected to any sabotage. However, in light of recent…incidents…the Council is obliged to take up the matter for investigation."

Again that flicker through the crowd. From several different directions Spock hears comments as people begin to recall the events the dean alluded to—weapons smugglers apprehended on the lunar docking station. Both times non-Terrans were involved, though the operatives were from different worlds and their craft were headed to different destinations.

Overlooking those obvious differences, the xenophobic group Earth United has made the case in the media that the weapons smuggling is proof of sabotage aboard the _Camden_ , despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

The illogic of their argument is frustrating.

The dean takes a deep breath and flushes, visibly angry.

"And now," he says, "it is my unpleasant duty to ask you to read the loyalty oath headquarters is requiring for all non-Terran faculty. It should be on your screens—"

This is what Spock had feared most—and he becomes very still.

"Questions?" the dean asks.

The young Andorian sitting beside Professor Artura speaks first.

"Are my Terran colleagues required to sign?"

The dean hesitates before answering.

"As you see," he says, "the wording specifically mentions that the signer is non-Terran. The rest of the faculty may be required to sign a loyalty oath, but I assume it will not be this exact one."

"Then you do not know," the Andorian says.

"No, I don't."

Spock sees the dean blink twice. Embarrassment? Dismay.

"Why now?"

This from Professor Azul, a Midorthial in the mathematics department—one of the only chess partners who has managed to beat Spock in their infrequent friendly matches.

As the dean explains the origins of the Earth United movement and the motivation behind the loyalty oath, Spock has a growing uneasiness about what has not been said—what must be laid bare before any equation can be balanced, before anyone being asked to sign can make a rational choice. For a moment he hesitates—the dean can be an emotional man. He has, for instance, taken offense in faculty meetings when professors raised questions about his decisions.

"What are the consequences for failing to sign?" Spock asks.

"For civilians," the dean says slowly, "revocation of tenure and termination. For Starfleet officers—general court martial and dismissal."

The room erupts into a buzz of noise and for a few moments the dean stands aside and waits. When the noise subsides he says, "If you wish to sign now, you may do so. Otherwise, you have until the 18th to decide. Thank you."

With that, the dean turns abruptly and leaves the conference room. The faculty members get up, some lingering over their terminals, others heading directly up the aisle. Careful not to brush against anyone, Spock threads his way through the crowd to the translation table.

He feels Nyota watching him.

When he is a few feet away she stands and they head out the back door.

"Did you know about this?" Nyota says when they are clear of the administration building. If she is annoyed that he didn't give her more information beforehand, he can't tell.

"I suspected."

Suddenly Nyota's expression is pinched, her brow furrowed. She _is_ upset—though whether with him or with the meeting he isn't sure.

"Let's get away," she says, startling him. In slow motion he sees her fingers reaching toward him, then curling away at the last moment. He feels relief and disappointment in equal measure. "Someplace off campus," she adds.

Lately he has indulged himself when he is alone—fantasies about taking her to his apartment, imagined moments of privacy. In his dreams…but he dares not think about that now, not when his face might give him away. With a start he worries that he may already have...

He reacts then—feeling his face grow hot.

"I mean," Nyota says, apparently wishing to disabuse him of any ideas of impropriety, "for coffee. Or tea. At a teashop. Somewhere close by."

A whiff of salt—she is perspiring, embarrassed. _Because she knows_?

"I'm just— _upset_ about this whole thing."

He doesn't know what to say.

At the teashop across the street from the north gate Nyota orders at the counter while he stakes out two chairs for them in the corner table near a window. When she makes her way through the crowd, they both sit in awkward silence until their server sets a pot of tea and two porcelain cups on their table.

"Your help was—"

"I hope you don't mind—"

Lately they have started doing this—speaking simultaneously—a result, no doubt, of falling into similar trains of thought when they work together.

Spock tilts his head fractionally and Nyota starts again.

"I hope you don't mind getting away from the campus for a few minutes," she says, pouring herself a cup of tea and lifting it gently to her lips. "I wanted to…tell you that I'm sorry…about everything."

Because he is watching her so intently, he sees a sheen flush across her cheeks and nose. His heart beats so hard that he struggles to resist an impulse to press his fingers to his side.

"Everything?"

_Surely she doesn't know._

"The oath. The racism behind it. Starfleet shouldn't cave in to public pressure that way."

"If the Federation Council calls for it, they have no choice," Spock says, relieved. The meeting then—that is why she is upset.

"But you don't approve!"

"My… _feelings_ …on the matter are not relevant."

"Yes, they are!" she says, putting her cup down so swiftly that the tea sloshes over the side. "You are being singled out for unfair treatment! It's an injustice, and you don't have to like it!"

_You have to pay attention to other people's feelings._

The faculty are being treated unfairly, being targeted in a way that feels wrong…and familiar.

Hearing Nyota say it lightens the ache. Divides it between them. Makes it bearable.

"You could file a grievance—or have the civilian faculty petition for redress. What's next? This Earth United group could have your visa revoked. You'd have to leave—"

"That hardly seems likely."

"But it could—"

"Logically almost anything _could_ happen," Spock says, his eyes still locked on hers. "But Starfleet would resist losing a large number of faculty—"

"They aren't resisting the mistreatment of those same faculty now! What happens if one day you find out that…that…you're being sent back to Vulcan? What about your career? Your…life here?"

He thinks about that for a moment. What would it mean, to give up Starfleet, to head back to Vulcan?

At one time he might not have minded—would have welcomed it, even.

Now…

Slipping his hands around his cup, Spock looks into his tea and says, "That is an unlikely scenario. At any rate, I hold dual citizenship. Deporting me would be difficult."

She shifts in a way that indicates surprise—a reminder that as closely as they have worked for the past few weeks, they still have much about each other that they do not know. Her childhood in Africa, for instance—she has made only glancing remarks from time to time, snippets about her favorite tea growing up, or just yesterday, a sheepish account of bloodying the nose of the neighborhood bully who had shoved a young child to the ground.

"Well, what about Professor Artura? Couldn't he be sent home—if this group is able to deport all aliens from Earth?"

His mother would call it righteous indignation—Nyota's tone of voice, her posture, the way she leans forward across the table, almost like a conspirator.

Deport all aliens from Earth—that would not be possible, Spock thinks, taking his eyes off Nyota so he can consider her words without distraction. Earth's history—its population—is too intertwined with aliens to ever be what people like Earth United want it to be.

He himself is a repudiation of all they believe.

"I have no idea what would happen to Professor Artura," Spock says, meeting her gaze again. "We have never discussed his legal status."

Without lowering his eyes, he sets his cup back on the table and says, "Your worry is premature. Nothing may happen yet."

He means for his words to reassure her, to comfort her, but her face still shows signs of distress.

"I just feel so…helpless," Nyota says.

"You were helpful today," Spock says, careful to choose words that say both what he means—and less.

Nyota snorts.

"That was nothing," she says. "I just kept an eye on a monitor. That lieutenant could have handled it on her own. She didn't really need me."

Spock looks down then, circling his thumb and forefinger through the handle of the cup before taking a sip.

"You were needed," he says. The truth this time, and no lie.

They are not bonded, not connected telepathically, but here it is again, the feeling that they are touching when they do not touch, not as Vulcans do, and not even in the needy way his father reaches for his mother, but from some human place inside him that has been mute until now, speaking the language only she knows.

Almost as if they could speak without words—or as if every word does double duty, meaning more than they can say aloud.


	13. Dialect

**Chapter 13: Dialect**

**Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, proving that wishing doesn't make something so.**

Spock is never late.

As far as Nyota knows, he doesn't wear any sort of chronometer, nor does he pay attention to the numerous wall clocks posted on campus.

Yet she often amuses them both by asking the time—and then checking his accuracy against her wristwatch. He is always exactly— _exactly_ —right.

So tonight when he is late to dinner she is quietly alarmed.

For five minutes she stands outside the small restaurant they had agreed on, craning her neck around the passers-by to try and catch an early glimpse of him at the end of the sidewalk.

After ten minutes she checks her comm— _no calls_ —and her watch— _it is working properly._

_Ten minutes is nothing. Calm down._

He's never late. _Ten minutes is an eternity_.

When she sees him at last— _twelve minutes late_!—she holds up her left arm and gives a hesitant wave. From this distance she can't read his expression—he's at the far end of the block—but she _feels_ that he has spotted her—that same eerie sense she has noticed lately whenever he is close.

If they don't hurry they will be late for the lecture. Apparently he is thinking the same thing, for he says nothing as he joins her at the restaurant, simply nodding and pushing open the door and leading the way inside.

"Tea," Spock says without preamble to the startled waiter who approaches their table with menus in hand. "And you?"

Taking the menu from the waiter and shooting him an apologetic glance, Nyota says, "Yes, please. Tea for both of us."

When the waiter moves away, Nyota puts her folded menu on the table and looks up. Spock's eyes are on her and she feels thrown off guard by his intensity.

"What happened?"

"I apologize for being late," he says. "I was…detained."

"What happened?" Nyota says again, but the waiter appears with an old-fashioned tablet and pen.

"Tea only," Spock says after Nyota orders.

"You aren't going to eat?" she says, horrified. Although he often sits with her at lunch, she knows that the evening meal is one he truly needs.

"After the lecture," he says, and she sits back. After all, what she knows about Vulcan eating habits is minimal, and he knows himself better than she does.

"Aren't you going to tell me why you were late? And explain why you didn't call?"

Although she tries to affect a playful tone as she says them, she wishes she could rein in her words—stable them, wild horses that they are. Lately she has been much too free in how much she asks, how much she assumes. He has a right to his privacy.

But if Spock is offended by her over-familiarity, he doesn't show it. Instead, he tents his fingers under his chin and says, "Today is the 18th. I had to go to the dean's office to sign the loyalty oath."

"You signed it?"

She knows she sounds disapproving, but she can't stop herself. She doesn't blame any of the professors for signing it—their jobs, even their careers—are at stake. Her disapproval is not with them—or with Spock—but with Starfleet itself, for bending to public pressure.

"There was a briefing afterwards," Spock says. "I apologize for being late. And for not calling."

"No, no," she says swiftly, feeling petty and foolish, "I…certainly understand."

When her food comes at last, it is cardboard in her mouth, dry and tasteless, and after a few bites she pushes back her plate and suggests that they leave.

They had been warned, but Nyota is shocked to see protesters outside the north gate as they approach the Academy auditorium. Even in the gloom of twilight she can tell that some are carrying signs sporting the Earth United logo.

Darting a glance up at Spock, she tries to read his reaction.

If he has any at all, he hides it well.

Two months ago she would have assumed that he was indifferent about the protesters and their signs. Certainly his face reveals nothing.

But now…the twitch of a muscle in his jaw, the narrowing of his gaze.

He is furious. She is sure of it.

Two MP's stand facing the crowd of thirty or so people milling about outside the gate. As Nyota and Spock pass through, someone shouts, "Go home!" One of the MP's swivels his head around quickly and nods when Nyota makes eye contact. The other keeps his eyes trained on the protesters.

"I'm…sorry," Nyota stammers. Spock says nothing, continuing to walk so quickly that she has to take larger strides than are comfortable to keep abreast.

When they reach the auditorium steps, Spock starts up and then pauses, waiting for Nyota. Uniformed cadets and several officers hurry up the steps ahead of them.

The Brodhead Lecture has always been open to the public, so Nyota isn't surprised to see civilians seated when they reach the auditorium. She _is_ surprised, however, that so many people are here.

 _The newsfeed_ , she thinks. Spock's winning the Brodhead Prize this year coincides with the uptick in anti-alien sentiment in the wake of the _Camden_ accident. Several news agencies highlighted the irony of an alien being singled out for recognition by the Academy students, and not surprisingly, Earth United immediately vowed to disrupt the lecture.

Without the MP's at the gate, Nyota is sure they would, too. _Might even still try to._

Trailing Spock down the side aisle toward the front of the auditorium, Nyota hears murmurs from some of the audience members. Surely not everyone here is interested in Romulan dialects—a topic she herself had suggested. A more general lecture about the nature of teaching or the importance of linguistic study as preparation for space travel might have been better choices.

_Too late now._

A seat has been reserved for Nyota on the front row, where language faculty members and professors in the computer science department—the two disciplines Spock teaches—are already waiting. She slips into a seat beside Professor Artura while Spock heads on up the steps and makes his way to a chair beside the dean and assistant dean on the stage.

Leaning toward her ear, Professor Artura says with his lisping accent, "I hope you accompanied the Commander here."

"We came together from dinner. Why?" Nyota asks, glancing at the Andorian professor.

"The unpleasantness outside," he says, as if this is explanation enough. Nyota frowns and he adds, "When you are around, Cadet, the Commander looks at little else."

Unsure as she often is about how to interpret Professor Artura's innuendos, Nyota settles back in her seat, studiously looking away.

In a few moments the lights dim twice and the murmuring fades to silence. The dean, a large man with graying hair, rises and approaches the lectern.

"The Brodhead Prize," he says by way of introduction, "is the oldest, most prestigious award this Academy gives to the teaching staff. Voted on by the corps of cadets, the professor recognized by this prize exhibits the best traits of integrity, clarity, and commitment, both to his students and to this institution."

A slight noise from the rear of the auditorium distracts Nyota—she turns quickly, daring anyone to cause a disruption—but the noise is an innocent one—someone shifting awkwardly and loudly in a seat. When she turns back around, Nyota sees Spock already standing behind the lectern, his eyes on her.

Professor Artura might be on to something after all.

And then Spock looks around the auditorium and begins. His lecture, the one Nyota had suggested, describes the little-known and less understood Romulan dialects—all three of them—and outlines their differences. It is a project he has been working on with a native speaker, a settler on Cestis Three who claims to have been raised on a Romulan mining colony. Because she regularly sorts his work email, Nyota has kept up with the progress of his research, and over their lunches they often discuss the vocabulary and syntactical features that differentiate the dialects.

The most common dialect—at least, according to Spock's contact—is the imperial one spoken by administrators and soldiers…in fact, by most of the Romulans working for the empire.

The second dialect is spoken by everyone else: common laborers such as the miners and metalworkers, most who live on colony planets, or by merchants and handymen, people with less status than the military and government officials.

The third is the dialect spoken by people in intense relationships with each other—husbands and wives, for instance, or parents and children. All Romulans seem to know this dialect, announcing the intensity of their feelings for someone by choosing to use it.

As Spock begins to speak, Nyota relaxes her hyper-vigilance and falls into the trancelike state she sometimes feels when she is quietly focused on absorbing new information. The audience is unusually quiet, too—a good sign. Coughing or restless noises would suggest they are bored. Taking a peek around, Nyota decides the audience is enjoying the lecture, despite the somewhat esoteric subject.

"Within each of the identified dialects are two hierarchies which give more insight into Romulan society," Spock says, his voice reverberating through the large room. "Those Romulans in a dominant position speak the dominant version of each dialect—and subordinates speak a slightly different variation. The different cadence and pitch of dominant and subordinate strands is strictly observed—and anyone wishing to communicate directly to Romulans would need to know not only the language but the proper social context in order to be able to communicate well."

This variation in the dialects is what Nyota and Spock have spent most of their lunch times discussing.

"When we make contact with the Romulan Empire," Spock told her recently, "we need to have someone familiar with the culture ready to step in as the translator."

"But what we know about Romulans," Nyota had argued, "is almost nothing."

"In many ways," Spock had said, sipping a cup of hot tea and eyeing her from across the small table in the break room, "what we know about anyone is almost nothing."

They had argued about that—pleasantly, playfully—before heading back to work.

Before long Nyota can tell that Spock is wrapping up his talk. They had debated the merits of offering a Q & A—Nyota was for it, though Spock argued that anyone who needed clarification of something wasn't listening in the first place.

To Nyota's surprise, when Spock sits back down during the applause, the dean dismisses the audience without a chance to ask further questions, simply announcing the reception in the lobby.

"Very interesting," Professor Artura says to Nyota as he unfolds himself from his chair and stands. "The Commander did a fine job. You must be his lucky talisman."

Unable to resist, Nyota blurts out, "The Commander doesn't believe in luck."

She laughs then—and Professor Artura shakes his head and walks down the row toward the aisle.

A large group of cadets is milling about the front of the stage and Nyota knows that Spock must be there. He hates chitchat—she is sure of it—and she pushes her right shoulder into the group and presses forward until it opens up and she can wriggle through.

There he is, as she had imagined, standing in the center of students and other well-wishers, looking slightly nonplussed and ill at ease. From the corner of her eye she sees him—no, she _feels_ him—searching for her, and she taps one short cadet on his arm and smiles when he turns around, annoyed, until he reluctantly steps aside.

Spock doesn't look at her directly—he is busy listening to an energetic woman in civilian clothing—but Nyota sees his shoulders ease downward, his stance soften a fraction.

He knows she is there.

She vows to stay as close as she can while he is surrounded.

Suddenly the dean's voice booms over everything.

"If you will move toward the lobby," the dean says, "we have refreshments ready. Commander Spock will be able to speak with you there."

The crowd slowly tilts toward the center aisle and Nyota takes a step forward, keeping her peripheral vision aimed on Spock. A slender sandy-haired man blocks her view for a moment, but she scoots to the side so she can see better.

 _He's okay_ , she tells herself. _Stop hovering._

Just then Nyota feels the jiggle of her comm and she fishes it from her pocket.

 _Gaila._ With a flash of irritation, Nyota thumbs the comm on and says, "This better be good. You know I'm at the lecture."

Expecting to hear a trill of apology— _oh, I forgot it was tonight_ —Nyota is startled instead when Gaila answers with a tense, tight voice.

"I need you," Gaila says, and Nyota feels her heart knock in alarm. "I left my ID in the dorm and I need it or they won't let me leave."

"Where are you?" Nyota says, pressing one hand to her free ear to block the racket of the people passing around her. "What's happened?"

"I'm at the police station," Gaila says. "They won't let me go until I show my ID."

Another wave of people press close and Nyota steps into a row of seats and turns her back to the aisle.

"What are you talking about?" she says, cupping her palm around the comm. "Why are you at the police station?"

"A fight a Moe's," Gaila says, naming a popular off-campus bar. "Please hurry. The MP's have already taken Jim."

By now the press of people has filtered out into the lobby and Nyota follows them, scanning for Spock. Here's there, by the refreshment table, his brow furrowed in concentration as an alien professor—someone Nyota does not recognize—waves his limbs in time to staccato bursts of fricatives.

When she passes him, however, Spock looks up instantly, as if he knows she is there—and she lifts her comm and points to it.

_I'll call you later._

His expression doesn't change.

She feels a wave of guilt for distracting him with what will undoubtedly end up being something foolish—a bar fight, of all things, with Jim Kirk in the middle.

The door of the auditorium slams behind her as she storms out. The quad is oddly deserted as she half-runs, half-walks up the pathway to her dorm.

Nor does she meet anyone in the hallway, though in the distance she hears muffled music blaring through a wall.

As soon as Nyota steps into her room, the overhead light snaps on, revealing the usual schizophrenic shambles—Nyota's side of the room neat and orderly, Gaila's bed and dresser hidden under colorful mounds of discarded clothes and wadded linens.

A wave of despair— _how will I find anything?_ —and then Nyota sighs and begins searching for Gaila's Academy ID.

It is where she least expects it—on top of the dresser, easy to spy—and she grabs it and hurries back out, heading once more across the deserted quad toward the west gate and the police precinct office just down the block.

There she makes her way uneasily through the usual suspects sitting in the dingy hallway—drunks with black eyes, a surly woman holding her head in her hands, an elderly man who reaches up as Nyota walks past, saying, "Are you here to see me?"

The misery is palpable and oppressive.

In the open area at the end of the hallway Nyota sees Gaila, for once looking abashed and almost beaten down, sitting alone on a wooden bench.

"What happened?" Nyota says, handing Gaila her ID. When Gaila doesn't answer, Nyota sits beside her on the bench, letting her arm drift up to her roommate's shoulders.

"Tell me," she says softly, but instead of answering, Gaila shakes her head.

"You her roommate?" a police officer says, walking over to where the two women sit. Nyota nods and Gaila holds out her ID which the officer takes, examining it closely before handing it back.

"Okay, you can go," he says curtly, "but you might want to find better company next time."

Gaila shoots him an evil look but says nothing. Back through the hallway of misery and up the block, opening the west gate with her key card and walking stiff-legged back to the dorm—Gaila is silent, her arms wrapped around herself against the chilly night air. Nyota bites back her impulse to question her— _what happened, where is Jim?_ —and sure enough, as soon as they are back in their room, the door shut loudly behind them, Gaila sinks into her bed, weeping.

Again Nyota forces herself to be silent and wait, sitting down beside Gaila and patting her back lightly.

"Do you want me to leave?" Nyota says after a few minutes, and Gaila sits up, snuffling loudly, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose.

"Please don't," she says. "I…need you here right now."

And then she begins to talk, painting for Nyota a picture of the evening—the bar, crowded with civilians for a change, some who had obviously been with the protesters near the auditorium earlier.

"They started as soon as we got there," Gaila says, taking the handkerchief Nyota proffers her and blowing her nose so noisily that both of them giggle. The lightened mood doesn't last, however, and Gaila frowns again and says, "Two of them made comments about Jim—saying….calling him names…for being with me."

"And that's when he started the fight," Nyota offers, but Gaila shakes her head.

"No," she says. "He was mad—but we sat at a table in the corner, thinking they would leave soon. But they didn't. They just got louder…saying he was…. _wrong_ …to be with an…alien."

"And then he hit them?"

"Not then," Gaila says. "Not until one of them called me a whore. An Orion whore."

Nyota is shocked. The Orion sex slave trade is not unknown—but the women pressed into service are victims, manipulated by traders who sell them across the quadrant.

"That's when Jim hit them," Gaila says, managing a hesitant smile. "Their friends jumped on him—but he took several more down with him. And then the police were there—and the MP's came to the station and took Jim away. He's going to spend the night in the brig, Ny, and it's my fault."

At once Nyota is furious—not with the protesters who insulted Gaila, nor even with that hothead Jim Kirk, but with the unspoken burden of guilt Gaila assumes as her own, as if she has done something wrong.

"Nothing's your fault!" she says loudly. "Jim Kirk knew what he was doing—and a night cooling off in the brig is a small price to pay."

Nyota is surprised to hear herself defending him this way—almost as surprised as Gaila, who laughs ruefully and leans over to hug her.

"I'm taking a shower," Gaila says, letting go of Nyota and grabbing a towel from a pile on the floor beside her bed.

"I'm going to call Commander Spock," Nyota says. "I had to leave the reception without explaining—"

"Don't tell him…anything," Gaila says, and the note of vulnerability in her voice—that new uncertainty that Nyota can't recall ever hearing before—almost breaks her heart.

"Just that you are okay," Nyota says as Gaila heads on to the bathroom.

But the comm line is busy—she dials twice and gets his voicemail.

 _What time is it anyway?_ She glances at the clock on her bedside table and considers. He could still be at the reception—though she expects everyone would have left by now.

More likely he is talking to someone who missed the lecture—his family, perhaps, or that woman whose image is on his picture cube—his… _k'diwah_ ….if that is what she is. The woman he went to New York to see.

The thought tightens her throat unexpectedly.

She stretches out on her own bed, willing her heart to slow down. The white noise of Gaila's shower is soothing, and in a few minutes she drifts into a fugue of fog and sleep, coming to only when a couple in the hall pass by, laughing loudly.

Gaila's gentle snoring makes Nyota smile—and she looks over at the clock. 0235. Her comm is in her jumper pocket and she tugs it out, checking her messages. Nothing. He hasn't called.

He won't be asleep—he often sends computer messages to her inbox this time of night.

And she did say she would call him. She hates to make a liar of herself.

But she hesitates.

What can she say about what happened to Gaila tonight without falling into dangerous territory—without reminding him of the pervasive otherness that surprises her even now when she has to consider her words, tries to anticipate his reaction.

_Stop expecting him to act like a human._

Gaila's words—which Nyota has adopted as a mantra.

A human male might misinterpret a phone call at 0235— _no, 0236_ —in the morning. Might read more into it than is there.

Spock might read less.

 _I said I would call._ She rehearses the words as she punches in his number.

He answers immediately and she feels that same peculiar tightening of her throat.

"Commander?" she says, lowering her voice to a whisper as she hears a rustle from Gaila's bed. "I apologize for calling so late. Are you busy?"

"My cousin is here," Spock says, and for a moment Nyota feels stung, as if she is being dismissed.

 _Stop expecting him to act like a human._ He's simply stating a fact _._

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, then," she says, but before she can click off, Spock says, "Wait a moment."

She hears the hold button engage and she has an urge to hang up. Calling was a mistake.

But before she can, Spock is back, saying, "My cousin is sleeping."

She smiles at that, trying to imagine a sleeping Vulcan. She can hardly picture Spock with his eyes closed.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry that I had to hurry away," she says softly, aware that the whisper implies a level of intimacy that he may find disturbing.

"An emergency?"

"Well, something like that," she says. "But it is taken care of now. At least, I hope so."

Silence on his end, and Nyota begins to wonder if he is waiting for her to explain. Or perhaps he is quiet because he is tired, or because their conversation has simply spun out to its logical end.

"Would you," he says at last, "care to come by to…talk?"

"Oh, no," she says quickly. "I really think everything will be okay. But thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

She hangs up then, and sets her comm onto the bedside table. For a minute she lies back, still, debating whether or not to change into sleeping clothes.

With a sigh, she pulls her jumper over her head and wriggles out of the form-fitting shirt, stripping down to her underwear. That will have to do.

0247\. Tomorrow will be a long day.

Just as she is finally comfortable, the itch of the sheet calmed at last, the night sounds dulled by her exhaustion, she wakes with a start.

_Would you care to come by to talk?_

Spock wasn't asking her for details about whatever had called her away—nor was he offering comfort. He was asking for her company. And she hadn't heard him.

X X X X X X

The only serious argument Spock ever had with his cousin Chris was about a woman.

For months afterward they hardly spoke to each other, and then only in terse, necessary communication.

_Your parents are coming to Mars when I graduate from the university next month. Will you be with them?_

_Uncertain._

_We need to talk._

_Agreed._

_You owe me an apology, big time._

_Likewise._

The university on Mars was the right choice for Chris—he who often complained to Spock that life on Earth was too parochial, too hidebound by tradition, too close-minded for a young man looking for a change. During such discussions Spock would eye his cousin with undisguised skepticism, his raised eyebrow a clear invitation to compare Vulcan society to what Chris thought he knew about the shackles of restrictions on Earth.

Several times Spock visited Chris on the Martian colony, always finding the constraints of the climate-controlled biodomes uncomfortable. _Biodomes_ was a misnomer, implying clear bowl-shaped constructions protecting buildings and vegetation in a natural setting. The reality was different: a series of low-ceiling buildings connected by poorly lit hallways and tunnels. Spock had no phobias, but the word _claustrophobia_ often came to mind when he thought about life on Mars.

"How are you ever going to survive in the closed environment of a starship?" Chris asked, and Spock said, "I do not intend to try. If I apply to Starfleet, I will indicate that my interest is in pure research only."

"Where better to do research than a starship? You could study life all over the universe."

Applying to Starfleet was not a serious consideration, at any rate. Spock was still undecided whether or not to spend his energy doing do.

His father, for one, would be unhappy if he left Vulcan. And he knew no one in San Francisco—though his mother's family were still mostly on the west coast.

In the middle of Chris' last year of university, he invited Spock for a visit before exams. Although he needed to work on his Vulcan Science Academy application, Spock agreed to take off several days to see his cousin, catching a late shuttle to the Martian colony and arriving just as dawn was breaking.

Chris was not at the transport station, or what passed for one—a small alcove with several worn seats near the airlock. _Too early_ , Spock decided, remembering Chris' penchant for sleeping in.

No matter. Even as he shifted his duffel and read the posted map showing the routes from the transport station to the university, Spock heard the characteristic whine of a small hover bus pulling up. In five more minutes he was at the front door of Chris' dorm.

From where he stood in the hallway, Spock could hear the chime inside Chris' room. That Chris might not be there—or that he could have forgotten that Spock was due to arrive that day—seemed unlikely.

Spock pressed the chime again.

After 37 seconds, a thump—and then footsteps to the door.

"You're here," Chris said, tenting his hand over his eyes, squinting at the hall light.

"Obviously." Spock started forward into the room. To his surprise, Chris put up his hand and tapped him on the chest.

"Give me a minute," he said, shutting the door.

Scuffling—and more thuds—and then the door reopened, this time with the lights on inside. Pulling on a long robe, Chris motioned Spock in.

The room was a shambles. Every drawer that could be opened was. Clothes and electronic equipment were scattered and piled around the walls in uneven stacks. Trays of half-eaten food littered the tops of the desk and the dresser.

And sprawled across the bed was the most striking woman Spock had ever seen—her skin almost the color of an Orion but her shapely, pointed ears and upswept brows suggesting a different heritage.

"You're Chris' cousin?" she said in accented Standard. Too startled to speak, Spock nodded and the woman laughed, draping a thin scarf over her shoulders.

"Why didn't you tell me your cousin was a Vulcan?" she asked, reaching her hand toward Chris who obligingly sat next to her on the bed, tucking her arm under his elbow.

"I guess I forgot," Chris said. "Besides," he said, letting his gaze linger on the woman before looking up at Spock, "he's only half Vulcan. His mother is my aunt."

"A human," the woman said, sitting up and pulling her arm back. "I didn't know that was possible."

By now Spock was distinctly uncomfortable. He was intruding—though neither Chris nor the woman seemed as distressed as he felt. With one part of his attention he began calculating the cost and time necessary for an immediate trip back home.

"I'm C'rina, by the way," the woman said, standing up and reaching her hand toward Spock.

Setting his duffel down on the floor, Spock slipped his hands behind his back. C'rina broke into another peal of laughter.

"I should have introduced you," Chris said. "C'rina ir-Levaeri, this is S'chn T'gai Spock. Now that's done—let's go get breakfast."

"My time might be better spent arranging transport home," Spock said, trying to keep his annoyance out of his voice.

"Don't be ridiculous," Chris said, standing back up from the bed. "You just got here."

"I'm making your cousin uncomfortable," C'rina said. "I'll catch up with you later."

As she sauntered past him, Spock felt a peculiar shift in the air temperature and caught a whiff of something musky but not unpleasant, like truffles or fermented _plomeek_.

A _n incredible woman, really bright, and very different_ , Chris had told him breathlessly the last time they had spoken by subspace radio, not mentioning C'rina by name. _I've never met anyone like her._

Their mutual interest in medicine had put them in many of the same classes, though Chris was already seriously considering psychiatry and C'rina was interested in a career in public health—something about her own history as a refugee informing her decision.

When he saw her, Spock felt the disjointed pieces of several conversations with his cousin falling into place.

He suddenly knew why Chris had invited him here. He wanted him to meet C'rina.

"Sorry about that," Chris said, rifling through one drawer and disentangling a wrinkled shirt. "I thought you'd be on the mid-morning flight. But that's okay. I needed to get up."

Spock said nothing but watched Chris dress and then followed him to the dining hall. Only a few students were there—though Spock couldn't recall ever seeing many on his previous visits.

"Enrollment is down," Chris said when Spock asked him about it. "That's why the university is offering such generous scholarships. That's why C'rina is here."

"She grew up on a Romulan colony," Spock said. It was not a question, and he sensed Chris' surprise.

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"Her name. Her given name is of Orion origin—and she appears to have some Orion ancestry."

Chris led the way to the beverage station in the corner of the dining hall and poured two mugs of coffee, handing one to Spock. They threaded their way back through the tumble of chairs and small tables to one near the door, sitting opposite each other.

"Her mother was an Orion," Chris said, taking a tentative sip of his coffee. "But that doesn't explain how you knew she grew up on a Romulan colony."

"Levaeri V was a military outpost and a mining colony that employed slave labor," Spock said, warming his hands around his mug. "Romulans take as part of their given names the location where they were born or raised. Her unusual genetics—and her atypical names—led me to a logical deduction."

"Naturally," Chris said, and for a moment Spock thought he heard something negative in his tone. When Chris spoke again, however, his voice was even and controlled.

"When the Romulans abandoned Levaeri," Chris said, almost as if he were delivering a formal lecture, "they left behind the slaves and their offspring. C'rina remembers her mother—barely—but she isn't sure who her father is. Probably a Romulan soldier—"

"She could do a genetics trace to find out," Spock said, and Chris shook his head.

"Nope. She doesn't want it. She says the past is the past and should stay there. Can't say I blame her."

For a moment neither spoke, and then Chris said, "Still…I…wanted you to meet her. I know that Romulans and Vulcans aren't the same, but I wanted her to see that…."

For the first time that he could recall, Spock felt like an alien to Chris—or like an object being used to make a point. He felt a flash of disappointment—no, something stronger than that. Anger. Idly he rubbed the scar on his thumb and tried to regain his sense of equilibrium.

"This is a serious relationship?"

"Yes," Chris said, ducking his head down and staring into his coffee. "At least, I hope it can be. If she sees that is it possible—after all, if a Vulcan and a human can forge a successful marriage—"

"Vulcans are not Romulans," Spock said so quickly that Chris tipped his head up in surprise.

"I know that," Chris said. "I didn't mean to suggest that they are—"

"From what we know about them, Romulans—the Rihannsu—are a military dictatorship. Their society and traditions are closed to outsiders. Even learning their language is a challenge. The little we know comes from social outcasts who have broken the code of _mnhei'sahe_ —"

"Stop!" Chris said, setting his coffee on the table and placing his palm flat on the table between them. "I know all that already. But it doesn't change how I _feel_. C'rina isn't responsible for her background and she shouldn't be judged for it. I thought _you_ would understand that."

In a flash Spock was back in Seattle with Chris and his two sisters—the four of them as children sitting legs akimbo in a circle, their hands gently touching, playing mailman.

Or another time, the three Thomassons gleefully deciding to ambush the neighborhood bullies who had given Spock a hard time, Spock's secret delight at his cousins' planned violence, his reluctant insistence that they do nothing instead.

"I…" Spock began, but he faltered.

Chris looked at him hard—his eyes narrowed—and then he scrubbed his hand across his sandy hair and sighed.

"It's okay," he said, swallowing the last of his coffee. "It's just…confusing to know what to do."

Indeed. The next three days were a maelstrom of confusion—Chris often rushing off to class and leaving Spock to fend for himself, or worse, dragging him to large social gatherings, always with C'rina there in the background, watching him with what Spock sensed was disapproval, though for what he could not imagine.

A few times she struck up conversations with him. Once they spoke about his application to the Vulcan Science Academy—C'rina expressing concern that he would have nowhere to go if he weren't accepted.

"My performance in school has been exemplary," Spock said matter-of-factly, eliciting one of C'rina's signature laughs. "I have no reason to believe I will not be accepted."

"Ah," she said, still smiling, "if I've learned one thing, it is that the universe is not so predictable as you would like. You can't say with certainty that you know anything about your future."

That was true. Intellectually he conceded that. But _emotionally_ —and that really was the right word—he felt he would be accepted.

Still—he ought to consider C'rina's words more carefully.

"Your own future," he said, looking around the crowded room until he saw Chris on the other side, chatting with a tall, balding man with a goatee. "Have you made plans for next year?"

From the corner of his eye Spock saw C'rina react, becoming more compact, her arms crossing and her shoulders rising.

"Medical school, of course," she said, darting a glance in his direction. "In Boston. They have the best public health program."

"And Chris?"

"You will have to ask him."

"He says he is applying to Boston as well. And perhaps San Francisco."

Instead of answering, C'rina busied herself with retying the sash that accented her waist.

"What are you two doing over here?" Chris said, handing C'rina a small glass of something bright pink.

"Talking about you," she said, looking at Spock over the top of her glass. Chris slipped his hand to her shoulder and Spock had that same odd sensation that he had the first time he had met C'rina, of feeling a wave of heat radiating from her body, a spicy scent wafting across the short distance. Chris smiled broadly.

Another evening they talked about Romulan dialects.

"What I do not understand," Spock said, "is why each dialect has two variations. How do the speakers know whether to use the dominant or submissive voice?"

"Who's been teaching you Romulan dialects?" C'rina asked.

"My father knows someone who sought asylum on Vulcan," he said. "He taught me the basic syntax and a working vocabulary, but I do not understand why—"

"I don't speak the language anymore," C'rina said abruptly, angrily. "I was never allowed to speak the dominant variety—so I can't help you out there. No one on Levaeri was allowed…we were _nothing_ to them."

Her voice came crashing down on Spock's ears.

"I apologize if I have offended you," he said, dismayed that his curiosity had opened what was apparently an old wound.

"I'm not offended," C'rina said, still angry. "And I'm _not_ ashamed."

She left the party then, to Chris' surprise.

"What did you say to her?" he asked Spock when he rejoined him, a note of accusation in his voice.

But Spock didn't answer and the two of them soon left the party as well, falling into a long, rambling conversation back in Chris' room.

"Wouldn't it be funny if we both ended up in San Francisco next year?" Chris said, to which Spock replied, "I have not yet decided to apply to Starfleet."

"And really, I'm going to Boston," Chris said, stifling a yawn. "C'rina isn't even considering any other place."

The night before he was scheduled to fly home, Spock stayed behind in the room while Chris met with an exam study group.

A few minutes after Chris left, the door chimed. Lately his cousin seemed more scattered than Spock remembered, often leaving his key card in the room and having to get the residence manager to let him in. Pulling open the door and expecting to see Chris standing there, Spock was startled to see C'rina instead.

"Can I come in?" she asked, but rather than moving out of the doorway, Spock said, "Chris is not here."

C'rina was almost as tall as Spock, thin and lithesome, her auburn hair falling over one shoulder. Unlike the other times he had seen her, when she had worn revealing or provocative clothing, tonight she had on a simple shift nipped in at her waist with a narrow belt.

The effect, Spock decided, was more appealing than the way she usually dressed.

Immediately he chastised himself for the thought. C'rina's appearance was none of his concern. He slowed his breathing and tried to sense T'Pring through their bond. She was there but so faint that she slipped out of his consciousness before he was aware.

"Do I have to stand here in the hall to talk to you?"

That same musky scent trailed after C'rina when he moved back and she stepped inside.

"Last night," she began, her back turned to Spock, "I…reacted badly when you asked about Romulan dialects. I wanted to…apologize."

"No apology necessary."

"I think so," she said, turning toward him.

"I assure you—"

"You don't like me very much, do you?" she said suddenly.

Spock felt a wave of disorientation. He wasn't, in fact, sure how he felt about C'rina. She was important to Chris—and for his sake, Spock tried to be dispassionate when he considered her at all.

But some of her behaviors threw him out of kilter. Her habit of laughing at him, for instance—almost as if she were refusing to take him seriously. As if she were trying to dominate him.

And her diversions away from the conversation when he spoke about Chris—as if she were indifferent or bored.

"You don't have to answer that," she said, letting her hand drift over the clutter on the top of the dresser. "I can see that you don't."

"I have no feelings for you at all," Spock said. "I hardly know you."

_Not quite the truth, not quite a lie._

"What you think you know is enough," C'rina said, turning back toward him. "Did you know, for instance, that in Romulan, the intensive, dominant form of _beloved_ is almost the same as it is in Vulcan?"

She stepped closer and Spock felt a tendril of alarm.

Or desire.

Or both.

" _K'ditha_ ," she said, the tip of her tongue brushing her teeth lightly. "See how close? We are not so different after all, you and I."

For a heartbeat he was silent, and then Spock said, "Dominant and submissive forms do not exist in the Vulcan language. You are…mistaken to draw a parallel."

In the dim light of the room, Spock could see C'rina narrow her gaze briefly, as if in anger. But then she closed the distance between them and stood close enough that he could feel the heat rolling from her.

"Always so logical, so unfeeling. You cannot be dominated," she said softly, and to his dismay, Spock felt himself leaning against his will toward her, his hand slowly lifting of its own accord to circle her waist.

"No," C'rina said, pressing her hand against his arm. "Not yet."

And then, as if in a trance, Spock saw himself shift almost imperceptibly, like eelgrass caught in an underwater tow.

C'rina flicked her fingers on the hem of his shirt and tugged, and Spock lifted his arms like an obedient child, his skin prickling in the sudden cool of the air as his shirt came free over his head.

He slipped his arms toward her again but she was too quick for him, bending down and grazing his left nipple with her teeth, even as she slid her right hand into his trousers, her fingertips brushing his _lok_ —

"What are you doing?"

Chris stood in the doorway, his key card still in one hand, his other hand balled into a fist.

A lightning bolt flashed through Spock, nailing him to the floor.

Her back to the door, C'rina pulled her hands together and stood up straight. Without a word she walked past Chris, leaving the door open behind her.

For a moment Chris stood there, his face stricken, and then he, too, turned and left.

Shortly afterward, Spock loaded his duffel and caught a hover to the transport station, spending the few hours until his scheduled flight sitting motionless on the worn bench near the airlock.

 _You owe me an apology, big time,_ Chris wrote later.

 _Likewise,_ Spock replied.

Though he could hardly articulate to himself how he had been wronged.

They did not speak about C'rina for months—not until the beginning of the academic year when they met up in San Francisco for a quick meal in a cheap diner, two refugees from futures that did not unfold at the Vulcan Science Academy and Boston Memorial, looking for a place where they could be blood brothers once more.

X X X X X X X X

He's going to be late.

If he turns left at the alley on West Avenue instead of continuing to Commerce Street and increases his speed by a factor of one and half, he can cut two minutes, 34 seconds from his travel time.

Nyota will be concerned. If her blood sugar is falling in anticipation of a meal, she might even be annoyed.

Or she might attribute his tardiness to a spate or recent behaviors that bear consideration.

Leaving his comm at work the other day, for instance.

Or more telling—and to him, much more disturbing—his loss of composure when he speaks with her—his odd slips of the tongue that embarrass him.

Slips that reveal what he is thinking—as if his brain and his tongue are in traitorous mutiny against his sense of who he is.

Today at lunch, for instance. He was going over one part of his lecture—a detailed example of the Romulan intensive dialect, and his tongue had run ahead of him, startling them both.

"The intensive modality," he said as Nyota leaned back in her chair, "shows that Romulans, for all their secrecy surrounding their social order, are as emotionally invested in close relationships as Vulcans or humans."

At that Nyota had quirked a smile and he stopped his recitation.

"As Vulcans?" she said. "I didn't know that Vulcans were emotionally invested in relationships."

Her words were surprisingly hurtful—a slap, a label. He drained his face of any expression and willed himself to breathe normally.

But she was too intuitive for him. He saw her face twist with distress.

"I'm sorry…that didn't come out right…it's just that, as we've been studying…as _I've_ been studying…the language, I don't remember learning any words that dealt with emotion—"

She stammered to a halt and pressed her hands flat against her thighs. From past experience Spock knew this was a signal that she would stand up shortly and leave. The idea that she misunderstood him—and more, that she would get up and walk away—was so upsetting that he said aloud what he had heard himself say only in his troubled dreams: " _K'diwa_."

"What?" she said, and he hastened to add, "It is the word that Vulcans use to address each other in intensive relationships."

"Oh," Nyota said softly, as if from a great distance.

"Similar to the Romulan word," Spock said, keeping his eyes fixed on his cooling tea mug on the table. "In Romulan, _beloved_ is _k'ditha_. Though only in the dominant form. There is no equivalent in the submissive strand."

His matter-of-fact tone was a shameless scramble to regain control—to unsay the word that had betrayed him.

"Beloved?" Nyota said.

"In the dominant strand. Spoken by those in control."

"And no word for those in submission? No…equivalent?"

"No," Spock said, lifting his gaze and meeting her eyes again. Something had changed between them—some awkwardness that had not been there before, some distance that was waiting to be traveled.

"I wonder why," Nyota said.

C'rina's face flashed in his memory.

"Because, " Spock said, "the conquered does not… _long for_ …the conqueror."

He knew he was being obtuse—but Nyota asked no further questions and they finished their lunch and went back to work.

Despite leaving for the dean's office early that afternoon, Spock realized almost as soon as he got to the administration building that he was hasty in planning to meet Nyota for a meal before the lecture.

Because the loyalty oath had to be signed on actual paper—a distrust of electronic signatures less quaint than inconvenient—the office was packed, most of the professors having decided, like Spock, to wait until the last day to sign. And then the briefing ran long—a review of the most recent intelligence about the anti-alien movements and a warning that they might try to disrupt Academy functions until the anger fueling them either burned out or was deflected somewhere else.

From the end of the block he sees her standing in front of the restaurant, waving to him. As she lifts her arm he notices, as he always does these days, how lithe and graceful she is, how centered her balance is, like a gymnast or a dancer.

 _Not tonight. He has to focus tonight_.

 _No more slips_. He doesn't trust himself to speak and nods to her instead.

Once inside he calculates how long the meal preparation will take. The odds are high that they will be late to the lecture if their meal is not served within the next seven minutes.

"Tea," Spock says to the waiter who approaches their table with menus in hand. "And you?"

He sees Nyota give some sort of unspoken signal to the waiter. A plea for him to hurry, perhaps?

"Yes, please. Tea for both of us."

When the waiter moves away, Nyota puts her folded menu on the table and looks up.

"What happened?"

"I apologize for being late," he says. "I was…detained."

At some level he is ashamed of having signed the loyalty oath and does not want to discuss it. Starfleet's asking for the oath is wrong, and giving in to the demand feels equally wrong.

But from the first meeting about it, he had known he would sign. History will show that this is not Starfleet's finest moment—that the Federation is allowing suspicion and race hatred to determine policies that should be based on reason and logic.

No matter. Until then, he has no choice in the matter.

Still, it is what his mother would call _galling._

"What happened?" Nyota says again, but the waiter appears with an old-fashioned tablet and pen.

"Tea only," Spock says after Nyota orders.

"You aren't going to eat?"

"After the lecture," he says, and she sits back.

"Aren't you going to tell me why you were late? And explain why you didn't call?"

 _He didn't_ _call_. The realization hits him like an electric shock. He hadn't even considered it—so distracted—so _haunted_ —he had been by…everything. The oath, the briefing.

And most of all, by the word that he had spoken as they sat at lunch—that taboo, heartfelt declaration, that word he has never once used with T'Pring, cannot imagine speaking to anyone else.

Except to the woman sitting across the table from him, unaware of the roiling emotions that take so much energy to keep in check.

In a few stumbling sentences he catches her up on his afternoon, and almost as soon as her food is set down, she says she is ready to go.

As they walk the two blocks back to the campus, Spock tells her that the anti-alien movement may offer some protest of the lecture—and sure enough, as they near the campus, he sees a group carrying placards filing past the north gate.

For a moment he debates hanging back and letting Nyota go on through without him.

But that feels like a defeat of sorts. He walks with her through the crowd.

Putting his hand in his pocket to take out his ID, Spock notices one of the MP's giving him a curt hand signal— _go on through_.

"Go home!" someone yells from the crowd.

"I'm…sorry," Nyota stammers. Spock says nothing, too angry to risk speaking.

When they reach the auditorium steps, Spock starts up and then pauses, waiting for Nyota. Uniformed cadets and several officers hurry up the steps ahead of them.

The Brodhead Lecture has always been open to the public, which explains the number of civilians seated when they reach the auditorium. And not surprisingly, the newsfeeds have made an issue of an alien winning the prize.

At the front of the auditorium, Spock feels Nyota slip away to the front row, where language faculty members and professors in the computer science department are already waiting. Spock heads on up the steps and makes his way to a chair beside the dean and assistant dean on the stage.

In a few moments the lights dim twice and the murmuring fades to silence. The dean rises and approaches the lectern.

"The Brodhead Prize," he says, "is the oldest, most prestigious award this Academy gives to the teaching staff. Voted on by the corps of cadets, the professor recognized by this prize exhibits the best traits of integrity, clarity, and commitment, both to his students and to this institution."

From the back of the auditorium a chair squeaks—and Spock sees Nyota swivel around in her seat, her air unmistakably defiant.

That she is upset on his behalf is strangely comforting.

Spock looks around the auditorium and begins. His lecture, the one Nyota had suggested, describes the little-known and less understood Romulan dialects—all three of them—and explains their differences. It is a project he has been working on with someone Chris introduced him to, a friend from the university, who like C'rina, had been raised on Levaeri. Although the topic is rather specialized, Spock is gratified at the audience's attentiveness.

As he explains the differences in the three Romulan dialects, pointing out the importance of domination and submission in the social strata, he is momentarily jolted to see Chris sitting near the back of the auditorium.

 _Nyota._ She must have notified his contact list about the lecture. That would explain the preponderance of people here—former students and acquaintances, and even a chess partner from the now defunct Academy club.

At the conclusion of Spock's lecture the dean announces the reception—foregoing any unnecessary questions from the floor.

As the audience stands and starts to mill about, he locates Nyota in the crowd, first by reaching out to feel her presence, and then by finding her in his field of vision. She is rising from her seat, chatting with Professor Artura. If he hurries, he can get to her before he has to talk to anyone else.

The crowd, however, has other plans, and as soon as he leaves the stage, he is surrounded. Beating back an irrational feeling of claustrophobia, he forces himself to speak to everyone who addresses him, trying to _be polite,_ to follow the social niceties that his mother has in the past accused him of deliberately ignoring.

Even so, when he moves his gaze from one well-wisher to another, he is careful to track Nyota's proximity—first to his left, and then, as she forces her way closer, almost at his elbow.

Apparently the crowd isn't dispersing quickly enough, and the dean flips on the mike and asks everyone to go to the lobby.

Careful to keep his arms and hands tucked away from the moving crowd, Spock makes his way down the center aisle.

"Congratulations!"

His cousin steps in front of him, smiling widely—and Spock feels the familiar warm pleasure of Chris' company—the belonging and affection that Chris offers freely. He turns to include Nyota in the conversation but she has ducked into a side row and is talking on her comm.

"My aide sent an announcement," Spock says, and Chris nods.

"You've been on the news," Chris says. "This is a big deal."

"Only because of the political situation," Spock says, leading the way out into the lobby. "I hardly think a lecture on Romulan dialects merits a news story."

"Oh, I don't know," Chris says playfully. "Lots of people find Romulans interesting."

Only now—after several years—are they able to joke about it.

The cousins walk together to the refreshment table, Chris offering Spock a drink and Spock declining, preferring instead to finish talking to the people who are obviously not going to leave without speaking to him. Suppressing a sigh, he listens to an agitated Medorian who argues that Spock has completely misinterpreted the importance of tonality in the imperial Romulan dialect.

A flux in his focus—unbidden and astonishing—and he looks up and sees Nyota, pointing to her comm.

The earlier phone call—she is alluding to it and letting him know that she has to attend to something.

His gaze follows her to the door. When it slams shut behind her, he feels disoriented, bereft.

The rest of the reception is interminable—24.5 minutes. No one has told him the protocol, but he assumes he has to stay until the last audience member leaves. At last he and Chris are the only two in the lobby.

"I was planning to stay tonight," Chris says, "unless I am interrupting…other plans."

Tilting his head at his cousin, Spock quirks one side of his mouth.

"As I recall, you were the one who on occasion had _other plans_."

"That you were known to interrupt."

They walk the rest of the way in near silence to Spock's apartment.

After palming the lights on beside the door and ratcheting the temperature controls down for Chris, Spock heads to the kitchen, lingering for a moment in front of the open cooler.

"Hungry?" Chris asks, coming up behind him, and Spock realizes that despite having eaten nothing all day, he is not hungry at all. Perhaps he is unwell—that might explain his loss of appetite, his…slips…in control.

Reaching around him, Chris takes an apple from the cooler shelf and walks back to the sofa, stretching out. Spock follows and eases himself into the chair.

"Your father looks good for someone who just had major heart surgery a week ago," Chris says, jarring Spock.

"You've seen him?"

"Rachel has. She went for her second round of interviews yesterday."

Spock's mother had mentioned this—the fact that Rachel was proposing a research project to the Vulcan Science Academy using telepathic healers to reach humans unable to speak…such as stroke or accident victims. Somehow her actually visiting Vulcan hadn't registered—another symptom of his distractibility of late.

"I have not spoken to my father since the surgery," Spock says, watching Chris nibble the apple to its core. "But Mother agrees that he is doing well."

"Perhaps you should see for yourself," Chris says, giving Spock a look meant to chastise him.

His apple finished, Chris hops up, picks up his travel case from the floor, and heads down the hall.

"Do you mind if I take a shower?" he says, not waiting for an answer. When Spock hears the water begin, he does what he has wanted to do all evening. He calls Nyota.

But the comm line is busy—he dials twice and gets her voicemail.

The noise of Chris' shower is oddly soothing, the way rare rainstorms on Vulcan are invitations to relax and meditate without the aid of an _asenoi._

He needs to meditate—the day has been eventful and stressful in so many ways that he feels overwhelmed, as if he is drowning again, like that day at the river when he heard Chris' head hit the spillway with a sickening crack.

The _asenoi_ is in his bedroom—beyond reach now that Chris is settling in for the night.

The _ka'athyra_ might offer some solace, but it, too, is in the bedroom.

The book of poetry, however, is on the shelf in the living area.

When he lifts it up, the book falls open to a well-thumbed page.

_I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams._

Not helpful at all. At all.

He closes the book and clears his mind, sinking into the oblivion of a light sleep.

Hours later when his comm chimes quietly, rousing him, he answers immediately.

"Commander?" he hears Nyota say so softly that he surmises she wants to avoid being overheard by someone nearby. "I apologize for calling so late. Are you busy?"

"My cousin is here," Spock says, unsettled to hear her at this time of night. She might be in some distress…or injured…

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, then," she says, but before she can click off, Spock says, "Wait a moment."

Relief washes over him and he is able to think clearly again.

From where he is sitting, he can hear Chris' erratic snores.

"My cousin is sleeping."

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry that I had to hurry away," she says softly, the whisper in her voice singularly arousing.

"An emergency?"

"Well, something like that," she says. "But it is taken care of now. At least, I hope so."

He is overwhelmed with an urgency to see her—the memorized whorl of her ear not just in his memory but in his sight, the rasp of her boot on the carpet, the scent of soap as she leans forward in concentration, listening as he tells her all she doesn't know.

What it has been like to grow up apart, citizen of nowhere—and the particular pleasures, as well, of the alien sensibilities that define him.

While Chris is here in the next room he is safe—Chris' presence a harbor against temptation…she could be sitting here right now…

"Would you," he says at last, "care to come by to…talk?"

"Oh, no," she says quickly. "I really think everything will be okay. But thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

Sorrow when she hangs up—the word is not too strong. And relief.

What he might have been tempted to say, unguarded like this, dominated.


	14. Tradition

**Chapter 14: Tradition**

**Disclaimer: Not much belongs to me, alas.**

She takes a long time to choose his gift.

It has to be neutral—with no untoward overtones. Nor too expensive—that would also be suggestive of a relationship more than professor and aide.

Practical, certainly. Do Vulcans own things that have no practical value?

Even his decorative _asenoi_ is prized for its functionality as much as for its aesthetics.

Something to eat, perhaps, that he can enjoy during one of their increasingly frequent lunches.

Or tea? They drink plenty.

But something about food or drink feels…impermanent. She wants to give him something he will _have_. Will _keep_.

Although it isn't expected, Nyota also plans to give Professor Artura a small gift at the winter party the language faculty hosts before the break each year. In a funny way, she feels close to the quirky blue-skinned Andorian professor who often joins them for a mug of hot herbal tea—or when she makes it on rare occasions, coffee so thick that it coats a spoon.

The professor's habit of gently needling Spock with sly innuendos and hints about hidden emotions is paradoxically annoying and endearing—at least to Nyota. Spock, she suspects, is simply annoyed.

The gift for Professor Artura is easy—a tin of Cuban coffee bought in a specialty shop in Sausalito, a jaunt Spock had taken her on one afternoon when she complained that she was tired of filching cafeteria tea bags to stock the break room.

 _But Spock's gift_ —she considers asking Gaila for suggestions, but that, too, freights the relationship with unwarranted importance. It's just a simple gift. Nothing more.

Still, she considers it for several days before waking one morning from a restless sleep suddenly knowing what she will give him. A good thing, too. The party is today.

Instead of sitting in the cafeteria, Nyota grabs a bagel and a to-go cup of coffee and walks the ten minutes to the ceramics shop on Kober Street where Spock bought his _asenoi_. There she finds what she is looking for—a tea mug matching his firepot in color and texture. Even its fat off-center shape reminds her of the _asenoi._

When Spock drinks from it, it may remind him of their earlier trip to the shop. Or at the very least, he may recognize that she is paying homage to the _asenoi_ and the importance of meditation in his life.

Slipping the wrapped mug into her backpack, Nyota threads her way back down the crowded sidewalks to the Academy gate. Since the demonstrations last week before Spock's lecture, the Earth United protesters have been quiet—at least in San Francisco. Several were arrested during the bar fight that landed Jim Kirk in the brig—possibly cooling their enthusiasm for stirring up trouble. If so, then Nyota owes a debt of gratitude to Jim.

_They called me an Orion whore. That's when he hit them._

Gaila's words—the pain in her voice so raw that even now Nyota can recall it with clarity.

 _I already owe Jim Kirk a debt of gratitude,_ she thinks. She may have to reconsider her refusal to join his _Kobayashi Maru_ team.

Already the campus looks less populated. Although the semester isn't over until next week, many of the classes have wrapped up and students who live within easy travel distance have left for the break. Just last night Nyota's mother asked her when to expect her—and Nyota had parried, begging off making a commitment until she finishes her last major project for Admiral Spaulding's xenolinguistics class.

And there's Gaila. As far as Nyota knows, Gaila never goes back to Orion during the school year. The expense is prohibitive—and Gaila doesn't seem particularly attached to any family there.

Nyota hates the thought of leaving her roommate alone for the holidays. On the other hand, taking Gaila home with her for any length of time is out of the question. The last time they tried a long visit—

Nyota gives a little shake of her head. Sometimes she is amazed that she and Gaila have managed to stay roommates for three years—but they have, despite the mess, the different temperaments, the varied interests…

She should have asked Gaila to stop in for the language department party. Of course, calling it a party is a bit of a stretch. Someone—Professor Artura's aide, perhaps—has strung blinking blue lights in the break room, giving it a garish but cheerful glow. Everyone is expected to bring a dish of food safe for everyone else—or at least with the ingredients clearly labeled.

"I suppose that means we will have to forgo the hot cocoa and the chocolate cake," Professor Artura had said waggishly the other day as Nyota and Spock sat at one of the little round tables finishing their tea. "Unless we can trust you not to partake, Commander."

"What was that about?" Nyota said when the professor shuffled back out toward his office.

But Spock had simply raised one eyebrow in what Nyota has come to recognize as his long-suffering tolerance for Professor Artura's teasing.

The party—the gathering—isn't until lunch, so Nyota drops off her backpack in Spock's office and unlocks the lab down the hall. She doesn't expect many students—if the truth is known, she hopes few show up. Spock is meeting his computer science class this morning and won't be here until the party starts. If Nyota can get a few hours of uninterrupted computer time, she can finish up her own project.

When the fourth student arrives within the first ten minutes, Nyota resigns herself to getting none of her own work done today. Apparently everyone is in the same boat, rushing to finish major projects or cram for exams. She closes up her files and reminds herself that she is being paid to be helpful.

She is so busy that she barely registers Spock's return two hours later when he stands briefly in the doorway, nodding when they make eye contact.

For another hour she manages the lab traffic and trouble-shoots a glitchy program that keeps shutting down without warning. Once she thinks she may have to call Spock for help, but with a sudden leap of insight she knows where the problem lies—and sure enough, when she looks at the code, she's right. In a few minutes she is able to reroute the program so that it no longer closes down.

By the time the lab hours end, she's almost tired from standing and walking and rushing around—almost, but not quite. Invigorated is a better word.

And hungry. The smells wafting from the break room are like a magnet. She's tempted to slip inside right away, but instead she dips her head into Spock's office.

"Are you ready?"

She almost never catches him unawares, but today she does. His back is to the door and she sees him jump visibly when she speaks. So much for that famed Vulcan hearing.

As he turns toward her she has the distinct feeling that he is pulling inward, as if he is hiding something.

And then she sees that he is.

In his left hand he holds a book. Although it is wrapped and he slides it into his jacket pocket, she has no doubt that it is the same book she fetched from the post office several weeks ago, the one from Vulcan. The size is the same, and the shape is right.

It must be for her.

He ordered her a book. From Vulcan. Weeks ago.

She feels herself flush.

More likely than not it is some technical treatise on the nature of Romulan dialects, say, or a comparative study of the known languages of Beta Quadrant ruminoids.

No matter. It is _a book_ —a rarity—a treasured throwback to a more leisurely time. Whatever the subject, holding it and fingering the individual pages will be a delight.

He could not have chosen anything she would like more.

The tea mug in her backpack suddenly feels….impersonal. Utilitarian. It isn't, of course. She took a long time to choose it—gave it lots of thought.

But it can't compare to the gift of a book.

She smiles and waits for him to pull it back out of his pocket.

"If you are," he says, and for a moment she is nonplussed. Then she smiles again. Later. After the party. When they can exchange gifts without Professor Artura making some veiled comment.

Spock leans over and for the first time she notices his lyre on the top of his desk. It is exactly as she remembers it—a deep wood so glossy that it is almost maroon in the light.

"Are you playing?" she asks, and he says, "Apparently so. I have been informed that music is essential for the festivities."

He picks the lyre up by the neck and holds it out towards her.

"As you are an accomplished musician in your own right, perhaps you would care to try it?"

He is looking at her as he speaks, his eyes dark, his face a mask.

"I thought you said—" she begins, but something in his face crumples a fraction, and his eyes shift, catching the light.

"Please," he says again, his tone almost….imploring. Or apologetic.

Tentatively she reaches out and lets her fingers curve around the elongated headstock. As he lets go, his fingertips brush her own—and to her surprise, she feels…nothing.

Not the electric tingle—not the flash of consciousness she thought she had felt that day her ankle had given way and he had caught her, his arm around his waist, his hand on her own.

Nothing now. She feels a wave of grief, as if she has lost something irreplaceable.

"Hold it thus," Spock says, miming what she should do. His hand touches her own again, bending her fingers around the circular tonal modulator.

Heat, and pressure, but nothing more.

She gives the modulator a whirl and is rewarded with an eerie burr of noise—not unpleasant, but not music. In spite of herself, she laughs.

"Use your other hand for the strings," Spock says, and Nyota lets her fingers drift across the twelve wrapped wires that extend from the soundboard up the neck. This time the lyre lets out a cascading trill.

"It's lovely!"

She tips her head up to meet his gaze and for a moment neither says anything.

"I hear music!" Dr. Carson says, poking his head into the office. Like the majority of the language faculty, Dr. Carson is human. Besides Spock and Professor Artura, only one other teacher is an off-worlder, a source of consternation for some of the advanced students, Nyota included, who want to learn the nuances of language that only a native speaker will know.

"How many Romulans do you know willing to teach at Starfleet Academy?" Spock had pointed out when she had complained last year during their first class together.

"Commander," she had said, shifting from one foot to another uneasily in the lecture hall one day after everyone had left, "I don't mean to impugn your ability—"

She noted his raised eyebrow at that—she was treading on dangerous ground and she knew it.

"But you would prefer that you learn Romulan from a native speaker," he finished for her, and she nodded.

"When you find a suitable candidate for this position," Spock said, "I will be happy to forward your recommendation to the dean. In the meantime, Cadet Uhura, you would do better to spend your time practicing the submissive diphthongs."

It was a dismissal—and at the time she was angry—but Gaila concurred with Spock when Nyota relayed the account to her later.

"The Commander might not be a native speaker," Gaila said, idly buffing her nails while Nyota huffed around the room, her arms crossed over her chest, "but he's the closest thing the Academy has to one. You can either pick his brain for all he knows and be grateful, or stop whining about it."

Good advice—Nyota is glad she has taken it.

"Here, Commander," she says, handing the lyre back to Spock. "I think everyone is waiting."

The party itself is something of an anti-climax. Professor Artura insists that Nyota try some delicacies from Andoria that look disturbingly like dried slugs. Her own contribution to the meal is a large pot of tea that she keeps replenished. For the hour that everyone mingles and eats, Spock sits to the side, near a corner, quietly strumming his lyre, sometimes emitting a progression of atonal riffs that remind Nyota of certain jazz musicians, and other times playing a series of stately, harmonic chords.

For a while the break room is crowded with professors and student aides, but then they begin to drift out, in twos and threes, until only the people with offices on the third floor are left.

"As always, the tea was delicious," Professor Artura says to Nyota, holding out his cup for more. "When you return from the break, you must show me how to make this variety."

"How long will you be gone?"

This from Spock, standing up from his place near the corner.

"A very good question," Nyota says, holding one hand over the lid of the teapot so she can let the last drop pour into Professor Artura's cup. "And one my mother would like to know the answer to. I guess it depends on when I finish up my project for Admiral Spaulding. I can't leave until then."

From the corner of her eye she sees Spock waiting for her at the doorway, and she gives Professor Artura a smile and follows Spock back to his office.

Almost reverently he places his lyre on his desktop—his glance lingering on it for a moment.

Before she can stop herself, Nyota hears herself say, "Did my fingerprints ruin it?"

His face is turned away but she hears him say softly, "No. Not at all."

Something in his tone—or more exactly—in his distance…in her inability to _feel_ him—makes her heavy-hearted.

"Here," she says, her voice deliberately bright. "I brought you something."

Leaning over, she opens her backpack and pulls out the tea mug still swaddled from the ceramics shop. She holds her open hands together like a book, the mug cradled in her palms.

Spock steps closer and Nyota can hear his steady breathing. She looks up from her hands to his face, searching for that odd sensation that is missing tonight—the feeling of him _reaching_ to her in some indefinable way.

Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifts the mug and pulls it free of the wrapping. Only then, when the mug sits flat in his own hand, does he look away—and she sees his lip quirk slightly in amusement.

"The ceramic shop," he says and Nyota nods and smiles.

"It matches your firepot, see? The same potter made them both."

Because she is still watching his face, she sees him narrow his gaze in concentration as he rotates the mug in his hand and runs the fingers of his other hand over its surface. For a few moments he says nothing, and then he looks up suddenly and says, "Thank you, Nyota."

The only other time he has ever called her by her given name was the night before J.C.'s memorial, when they had spoken here, in this office, as Spock was planning his eulogy. His voicing her name was a tender moment she has ruminated on.

Hearing her name now—with his Vulcan inflection of the vowels—makes her conscious again of their distance today. For a moment she searches his face—but he gives her a steady look that seems to offer no subtext, no hidden meanings. Except—

_He's lying._

The thought comes completely unbidden, a surprise. She almost blurts out in wonder but instead gives him a harder look, taking a step closer as she does, watching his eyes widen as she tips her chin up and says, "My turn."

She lifts her hand, palm up, in front of her, adding, "My gift. I saw you looking at it earlier. Don't try to hide it."

Spock blinks, saying, "Your gift?"

"In your pocket. The book. The one from Vulcan. I know it is there."

Before she can stop herself, she stretches out her hand toward his jacket. She feels him—more than sees him— _brace_ himself—and she drops her hand.

The stillness in the room is astonishing. If he is breathing—if she herself is—she cannot tell.

And then in slow motion she sees his long, careful fingers rise and slide into his jacket pocket, easing the book out slowly, not dislodging the thin paper it is wrapped in. In slower motion he holds it out and she is careful not to brush his fingers as she takes it.

The paper comes away with a twitch. The cover is made from a deep purple silk, slubbed and iridescent. Rubbing her hand over it, she sighs.

"It's lovely," she says, glancing up. She shifts her attention immediately back to the book, opening it tenderly, smoothing her hand over the inside jacket decorated with rococo Vulcan script.

Squinting at the title page, she sounds out the only words she can: _T'Quir, Kohlar._

"Someone's name?"

"The authors," Spock says. "The poets."

At once Nyota is delighted.

"Vulcan poetry! I didn't know Vulcans wrote poetry."

In the hitch of his breathing Nyota can tell that Spock is considering how to phrase what he says next—and she tears her eyes away from the pages of the book and looks at his face.

What she sees startles her—even gives her a _frisson_ of alarm. He is distressed—not seriously, perhaps, but enough to let it register in his furrowed brow, in his eyes that have gone darkly opaque.

"What's wrong—" she begins, but he says, "I…it is not contemporary…poetry…but from the pre-Enlightenment period. You might…find it…interesting."

There it is again, the sense that he is being deceptive. She considers questioning him further but holds back. Something is making him uncomfortable. She takes a step away, granting him more space.

Her motion seems to waken something inside him and he says, briskly, almost brusquely, "Thank you for the mug. It was well chosen."

And without another word, he steps around her, picks up his lyre from the top of the desk, and leaves the office. Astonished, she stands and listens as his footsteps echo and fade down the hall and then down the steps, stands and listens until she hears the distant sound of the door to the front of the building open and shut.

For several more minutes she stands in the center of the office, unsure what just happened.

With a sigh, she turns off the office lights and locks up behind her.

 _Stop expecting him to act like a human_.

But the rest of the afternoon she is troubled by a vague uneasiness, running the few minutes in Spock's office through her memory, mining it for details, searching for clues. Was he upset that she asked for the book that was clearly meant for her—did she breach some unspoken Vulcan protocol about gift giving? Or had she said anything inappropriate?

Perhaps she should call to make sure he is alright?

She squelches that impulse fiercely. Obviously he wanted to be alone.

Or, more precisely, not with her.

Sitting with her back to the headboard of her bed and pulling the duvet up around her legs, she settles and picks up the book. Did she even thank him for it? She pauses, considering. Now that she thinks about it, she doesn't think she did. After all the trouble he went to—and she didn't thank him…no wonder he was irritated.

She is at once abashed at herself and relieved to have discovered the source of his odd behavior. On the bedside table she sees her comm. Thanking him right this instant will set things right.

With her left hand she reaches for her comm; with her right she holds the book, letting it open to a random page.

Her eye drifts over the ornate calligraphy of the text as she scrolls to Spock's number on her comm screen.

_I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams._

She sucks in a little intake of breath and holds her thumb still.

This is Vulcan poetry? Erotic, passionate…revelatory?

She feels her face flush.

Surely not all—

Setting her comm beside her on the bed, she flips through the book, catching a phrase here and sorting a line there.

And all of it is as deeply emotional as the first page she opened to.

_I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams._

When she holds the book spine down, it opens every time to this page.

Lifting it up to the light, she sees a miniscule crease along the edge, and there, even more telling, in one corner, a smudge.

No, not a smudge. A fingerprint.

Her heart hammers in her ears and she presses her hand against her throat.

With a quick motion she puts the comm back on her bedside table. If she calls him now, she will say the wrong thing.

She looks down at the page of poetry again, her eye drawn to the telltale print.

Tomorrow. They will have to speak tomorrow.

The electricity between them—the sense of his seeking her out, of _watching_ her—how he is so careful with her, so contained—is the poetry a way to say what he cannot say?

More likely than not, this whole thing means nothing at all— _stop expecting him to act like a human._

A gift of erotic poetry from a human might not mean anything, either.

Or it could speak volumes.

What it says when a Vulcan gives it—

What she thinks she knows about Vulcans may be completely wrong—may be leading her even now to a conclusion that in the morning may be laughable.

How could you think the poetry might be a message, she may tell herself after a good night's sleep, over a prosaic breakfast stripped of any romantic notions. _Stop expecting him to be human_ , she will remind herself as she finds him in the office later and smiles, saying, "You'll never guess what wild imaginings I had last night, sir, because of that little book."

And he will quirk his lip and signal his bemusement, saying something like, "Indeed? I apologize if I confused you—"

And that will be that. They will pick back up, professor and aide, as if nothing symbolic were offered or taken, as if the book is nothing more than a stitched together set of leaves with indecipherable markings on them, read by people who are caught in a vortex of feelings they can't control in their waking or their dreaming, people teetering on the precipice of love and desire, people not like them.

X X X X X X X

As a rule, Vulcans give few gifts.

The ones they do give usually meet some perceived need and are part of tradition and ritual. A meditation robe, for instance, when a child reaches the Age of Accountability. A year later, a personal _asenoi_.

Supplying simple needs such as food and clothing, technology for educational improvement and intellectual stimulation—none of these reach the status of gifts. They are expected and necessary, and as such, are given without comment.

Humans, on the other hand, give gifts frequently, and with little provocation.

"I found this in town for you," Spock's mother might say one day when he came home from school, some new data chip or a slice of desert fruit from a far part of Vulcan waiting for him beside his usual snack on the kitchen table, a mug of steaming tea sitting ready.

"It brings her pleasure to do so," Sarek explained later when Spock asked him about her habit of giving him gifts. "As does your appreciation," he added, and Spock realized he was being coached.

In fact, what he knows about gifts and gift giving are lessons taught by his father, an irony not lost on Spock.

"In diplomacy," Sarek said one evening after their meal as he and Spock sat on the back veranda watching Eridani set behind the hills, "gifts are a prelude to all that will happen. Opening an official visit with a well considered gift can lead to success in negotiations."

"That's how I won your father," Amanda said, stepping outside with a pitcher of water and leaning over to refill their glasses before setting it down on the table between them. "I opened my campaign by buying him lunch at a terrific little restaurant near the embassy. After that, he was putty in my hands."

Spock darted a glance first at his mother, who was grinning broadly, and then at his father, whose expression did not change but whose posture-leaning a fraction closer to Amanda and looking up at her—signaled his willingness to be teased.

"So you admit that the meal was a stratagem on your part?" Sarek said, and Amanda laughed one of her sudden trilling crescendos that sometimes embarrassed Spock when he was a child.

"I'm going back inside," she said, "before I give away any more state secrets."

His father's gaze followed his mother as she retreated.

"It is good to hear your mother laughing again," Sarek said quietly, and Spock knew he was remembering the miscarriage that had thrown his mother into a whirlpool of despair. Only now, months after he had gone to Seattle to stay with his cousins while his mother recovered, does Spock sleep though the night uninterrupted—the memory of seeing his mother in a pool of blood, his father directing him to call the medics, finally compartmentalized where it no longer shakes him awake.

A few weeks later Sarek took Spock into Shi'Kahr to shop for Amanda's birthday gift, and they spent much of their time together talking about the reasons for it.

"Why do humans celebrate the anniversary of their birth with gifts?" Spock asked, not a little annoyed that he was spending the afternoon walking through the market instead of exploring a dry creek bed near his house. Two days ago he had stumbled upon it with his new handheld scanner. The lifesign indicator had suggested the presence of burrowing insects but a preliminary search hadn't revealed any. He wanted to go back and look again.

"The origins of the tradition is lost in antiquity," Sarek said, leading the way into a shop that sold hand-woven cloth. "It is sufficient that the tradition exists for us to honor it. And—" he said, looking squarely into Spock's face, "your mother sees the gift as a symbol of your regard for her."

That was puzzling, and Spock started to say so, but just then the owner of the shop came up and his father's attention was diverted.

Leaving the shop empty-handed, they made their way a few minutes later to a market stall that sold data chips and scanner disks. Sarek browsed them quickly while Spock looked idly through a bin of old-fashioned books, most of them worn and dusty tomes written in a defunct dialect.

At the bottom of the bin, however, was a book unlike the rest, with a dark green baize cover and yellowing pages. When he opened to the fly page he saw a script he did not recognize—and a small printed image of a man—a human—holding what appeared to be a helmet in one hand and an axe in the other.

Sensing his father at his shoulder, Spock lifted the book up for his inspection. Sarek took it from him and turned it over first, then opened it again and leafed through it.

"What is it?" Spock asked, and Sarek handed it back to him.

"An adventure story, from Earth," he said.

Pointing to the title page, Spock said, "The language—"

"Is Greek," Sarek said. "The story is ancient, about the difficulties that a man encounters while returning from war."

Spock had never been drawn to speculative fiction, but something about the book was _fascinating_. Its age, perhaps, or the idea of a world where war was a recent memory.

"Can you read it?"

"Your mother can, I believe," Sarek said, and Spock had an instant image of himself sitting with the book in his lap, parsing the words for meaning, untangling the story with help from his mother. A puzzle, really, like discovering where those burrowing insects were hiding in the dry creek bed.

"May I buy it?"

If Sarek was surprised by his request he did not show it. Without a word he handed it to the merchant to have it wrapped in protective paper before venturing back out into the rest of the market.

Spock carried his prize in both hands, impatient to get home and look at it in more detail. He drifted behind his father in and out of several more stores until they finally headed back to the family flitter. Not until they were almost home did Spock realize with a start that he had not bought his mother a gift.

There was no time to consider what to do. As soon as they pulled up next to the house, Amanda greeted them at the door.

"Happy birthday," Sarek said, lifting a thick-trunked Terran cactus in a decorative pot from the storage compartment of the flitter.

His heart hammering in his side, Spock watched his mother's face flush with enjoyment as she inspected the plant.

"Oh, Sarek," she said, smiling up at him, "it's beautiful! And my Aunt Maria had one just like it in Tucson. It will remind me of her."

"I am glad," Sarek said. Then he turned to Spock, motioning him forward. "And your son has a gift as well."

Spock struggled mightily to keep the shock from his face. The book. _His_ book. For a moment he imagined himself explaining to his father that he was mistaken, that the book was not a gift for his mother at all.

But his imagination faltered, and he handed the wrapped book to his mother.

"What's this?"

It was, Spock knew, what she called a _rhetorical question_ —not something she really wanted answered. He stood silently as she pulled the book free of the wrapping.

" _The Odyssey_?"

"It…."

He cast about for something to say.

"It...reminded me of you."

There. Technically true. And his father's cactus had been deemed acceptable because it reminded his mother of her favorite aunt. Perhaps that was the goal in giving birthday gifts? Calling someone to mind?

To his astonishment, his mother's eyes watered and she reached out and tugged him into her arms. From her embrace he looked up at his father, silently asking for clarification.

Over their bond Spock felt his father's curiosity.

"Reminded you of your mother? Because the book is from Earth?"

But before Spock could reply, his mother released him and put both her hands on his shoulders, snuffling loudly and saying, "Because he _knows_ , Sarek. Because he understands how homesick I feel sometimes. Like Odysseus—so far from home."

Another wave of astonishment—and then over the bond he shared with his parents, Spock felt his father's soothing presence, telling him to be still, moving past him to comfort Amanda.

"Humans," Sarek said to him later in private, "assign meaning to gifts, whether you intend that meaning or not."

"But Mother assumed I understood her feelings—"

"She understood something more," Sarek said, raising his hand to stop Spock from speaking. "She understood that you selected the gift with her pleasure in mind. That you put her desires before your own."

"But I…didn't."

There. His confession sounded raw and incredibly selfish. He didn't dare look his father in the face.

For a few moments neither spoke, and then Sarek said, "Be that as it may, knowing what you know now, do you see that the symbolism your mother reads into your gift makes it worthy? That it brings her pleasure to feel understood this way?"

Was his father condoning his near lie when he let his mother believe the gift was for her? Or that it represented something about her own life—something he was only now beginning to comprehend?

Apparently so. Spock nodded and felt a weight rise from his shoulders.

Another birthday gift a few years later got him into equal trouble, this time with his cousin Chris.

On the morning of his 13th birthday, Spock found a small package at his place at the kitchen table when he sat down to breakfast.

"A gift?"

"Happy birthday," Amanda said from across the table where she was nursing a cup of Terran coffee—something she did on rare occasions. "Your father went to a lot of trouble to get one for you."

Over the past few years Spock had learned to navigate the bond with his parents at will—almost as if he were a traveler, able to set up road blocks when he needed privacy and respecting the alleys his parents lived down, not venturing too close unless they beckoned to him. This morning he sent out a tentacle of surprise to his father, already at work in the city, and was reassured that the gift was freely given—and that although it did, in fact, incur a great deal of effort on Sarek's part, his father had not minded.

Feeling his mother watching him, Spock opened the box and looked at something he had _longed for_ —he was not ashamed to admit it to himself.

Inside the box was a Starfleet scanner, a handheld tricorder that was capable of analyzing biological and geologic samples with a single pass. The data storage was tremendous—Spock flipped the scanner over and opened the back. The ports were right—with a little tweaking, he could set up telemetry access and tap into the computers of passing starships—or if he was diligent, he could figure out the code to most Federation outpost data banks and set up a subspace connection—

His mind was racing. The models of scanners available to civilians didn't even compare—his father must have used his contacts at the embassy—

 _He likes it,_ he felt his mother say, and the warmth of his father's satisfaction flooded him.

When Spock began packing for the annual winter trip to Earth to visit with Amanda's family, he made sure to put the scanner in his duffel. Chris, he knew, would be interested in it, and he was eager to show him some of the scans he had taken of the more exotic flora in the piedmont west of Shi'Kahr, a region both boys had discussed camping in as soon as Chris could finagle a trip to Vulcan.

Because Sarek was leaving soon for an extended diplomatic trip to Altair 12, the family's yearly trip was moved up a month—still cold and wet in Seattle, Spock noted wryly as they disembarked the shuttle.

In some ways, an earlier visit was easier. Rather than centering around various mysterious religious holidays, the family gatherings were more casual and less stressed—dinner at Cecilia's, usually, the children still in school during the day and Spock free to wander in the woods behind the Thomassons' house.

Which would have been far more informative if Chris hadn't confiscated Spock's scanner the first day.

In retrospect, Spock understood what happened, but at the time he was mystified. There he was, unpacking his duffel in the attic room reserved for him, all three of his cousins talking and moving and touching his stuff as he set it down—and then Chris let out a whoop and held up the scanner.

"You got it!" he said. "I don't know how you did it, but you got it. I've been reading about them, too—but just the declassified stuff. Have you tied it into the Vulcan Science Academy library? Have you gotten the telemetry set up?"

And for the next two hours Chris talked of nothing else, resting the scanner in his hand when he wasn't honing in on something to analyze.

By that evening Chris and Spock had established a connection to the Starfleet library and were busy downloading technical manuals when Chris' mother Cecilia called them to dinner.

"Hurry up!" she said. "We have a surprise!"

The surprise was a birthday cake, already lit with two candles.

"Since your birthdays are so close to each other," Cecilia said, "we thought we'd celebrate together."

Judging from Chris' face, he was as startled as Spock was.

"But my birthday isn't until next week," Chris said, and Spock added, "And mine was two weeks ago."

Cecelia threw her hands up in the air.

"Good grief!" she said. "Don't be so literal minded!"

"Any excuse for a party," Spock's youngest cousin Rachel piped up, sticking her finger in the frosting and hooking a taste.

The cake was far too sweet for Spock, though he took an obligatory nibble. His father, always the diplomat, ate more—and his mother finished her own piece and the part his father left on his plate.

"Now," Cecilia said, waving her fork at Chris and Spock, "I've let you eat dessert first as a tribute to your special day. Any other special requests?"

Spock was unsure what she was asking, so he said nothing. Special requests? He eyed Chris closely to see what he would do.

"Only one," Chris said, holding up Spock's scanner. "I want one of these."

"Try again," Cecilia said. "There's no way I can ever get you something like that."

Chris laughed and said, "No, really. I'm not kidding. This has everything. You can do a scan down to the molecular level on just about anything. Or you can broaden the matrix and map out stars as far as—"

"She's not joking," Chris' sister Anna said, her face pinched suddenly in what Spock had learned was her serious, concerned look. He noticed a reaction from Chris—some indefinable flutter in his motions, his eyes darting to his sister and back to the scanner in his hand. A shadow passed over his features and then cleared, like a cloud scudding past the sun.

"I know that," he said, looking directly at Anna. "I was just…fooling around. Here, Spock," he said, shoving the scanner into Spock's palm.

Some aftershock—like a ripple in a pond—continued between the Thomassons for a moment. And then Rachel declared, "We _could_ have another birthday cake on your real birthday. That's _my_ special request," and the tension around the table dissipated.

Later that night after everyone had dispersed to their separate rooms, Spock picked up the scanner and carried it with him to Chris' room down the hall.

He stood for a moment outside the door, listening, and hearing soft music and sounds that indicated that Chris was not sleeping, he tapped softly.

In a moment the door swung open and Chris said, "Am I keeping you awake?"

He was, in fact, keeping Spock awake—or at least, thinking about Chris' longing for the scanner—his palpable desire for it—was keeping Spock from being able to rest easily.

A gift, his father had told him, should show the receiver that you put his desires before your own. Should symbolize, if possible, the regard one felt for the recipient. And according to Vulcan tradition, should meet some need—and should be associated with a ritual.

"I can get another," Spock said, holding out the scanner.

Chris' eyes widened as he looked from the scanner to Spock's face.

"No, I couldn't," Chris said, swallowing. "It's worth too much—"

To his shame, Spock felt a wave of relief. The scanner was, truly, irreplaceable. Saying that he could get another was _a lie_ —or at least, a wishful fiction.

He glanced down at the scanner on his palm and let his gaze drift to the jagged scar on his thumb.

Reaching for Chris' hand, he turned it palm up, placing the scanner in it. An electric buzz zipped between their fingers and Chris laughed.

"Are you sure you want me to have it?"

"Yes," Spock said, and he was surprised to realize that he was, in fact, sure.

The rest of the visit was far less eventful, except for the uncomfortable moment when Amanda saw him wandering around in the backyard too aimlessly to suit her.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Spock replied, leaning over to inspect an unusually large beetle that was carrying a leaf on its back. Briefly he considered capturing the beetle so he could scan it when Chris got home from school this afternoon—but the beetle looked so intent, so purposeful in its motions that stopping it seemed illogical.

"Where's your scanner?" Amanda asked, and Spock jumped. How had she noticed? No matter. His mother was forever surprising him with what she did and did not remark on.

"I…lost it."

Not quite the truth, not quite a lie.

Spock wasn't sure how his mother would respond to his having given the scanner to Chris. Would it diminish the pleasure she had received in giving it to him?

She was angry that the scanner was missing—he could feel it through their bond—but she said nothing. Later he overheard her saying to Sarek, "If he can't take care of his things—" and his father coming to his defense.

"That does not seem characteristic of Spock."

Not until they got back home and his mother was unpacking their luggage did the topic of the scanner come up again.

"I thought you said you lost it!" he heard her exclaim, and he wandered into the foyer and looked down at his mother, kneeling beside his unzipped duffel, the scanner in her hand.

He was so shocked that he couldn't think what to say. Obviously Chris had put it there, though Spock couldn't fathom why.

Late that night after his mother went to bed and Sarek sat up drinking tea and sorting through the mail, Spock confessed everything to him—how Chris had wanted the scanner so intensely that Spock had given it to him—and then had returned it without explanation.

Sarek sat quietly, listening, and then said, "Your cousin accepted your gift because he desired the object itself. Perhaps he learned that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting."

"Perhaps," Spock said, but something about his father's explanation did not _feel_ right.

"You disagree?"

"I am uncertain," Spock said hesitantly. "His… _feelings_ …about the scanner did not change. He continued to enjoy it…"

"But his feelings about _you_ outweighed his feelings for a mere object," Sarek finished. "Your happiness became more important to him than his own pleasure."

And suddenly he knew. Chris had given the scanner back for the same reason Spock had given it to him in the first place.

_To show regard._

_To bring the other pleasure._

_To mark a ritual—and meet a need._

Much later as Spock lay in bed, he picked up his mother's copy of _The Odyssey_ he had not so freely given her long ago, mouthing silently the rhythmic march of the Greek vocabulary, rubbing his thumb across the new stubble on his cheek, lulled by the sound of his father strumming the _ka'athyra_ in the living area, his mother sleeping dreamlessly in the other room.

He felt a twinge of shame that he had regretted giving the book to his mother—just as he had let his appreciation for the scanner keep him from giving it to Chris without reservation.

"Sometimes," Sarek had said before Spock retired to his room, "we have to let go of something to calculate its value. Those are the gifts worth giving—and worth having. I am proud that you learned this lesson, Spock."

His father's praise was so unexpected that Spock was caught off guard, unable to reply.

In his imagination he has rewritten this scene many times, and in each one, he remembers to tell his father _thank you_.

X X X X X X X

He carries the book with him everywhere.

At first it is just to meals at the diner near his apartment—easier to slip into his pocket and pull out to read—a hedge against any unwanted intrusion while he eats—than the bulkier PADD.

But soon he takes it with him to the office, and even to the lecture hall, the slight pull on his pocket steadying him.

The poetry itself has become a tantric meditation—the words both erotic and mundane from repetition. At some level he hopes that they will soon become ordinary from rereading—and when they do, he will feel a measure of release.

The last computer science class of the semester affords him time to peruse the book—the seventeen students work without incident on their final exam, all of them finishing before the bell. Tucking the book into his pocket, Spock gathers up his materials and his _ka'athyra_ and heads to the language lab where he hears Nyota's distinctive footsteps before he ever sees her.

For more than two minutes he stands in the doorway and watches her, unobserved. She is leaning over and talking quietly to a cadet sitting at a computer, her hair cascading over her back before dropping off the cliff of her shoulder.

As he often does, Spock imagines his fingers sliding along the filaments of her hair—

And just as often, he feels a flash of shame that his control is so poor.

At that moment she looks up and sees him in the doorway, her glance sending his hand to his pocket, touching the book like a talisman.

A hasty retreat to his office and the relative quiet there—and for 46.5 minutes he is productive, grading the computer science exams.

Distantly he is aware that the party participants are beginning to gather in the break room, their greetings to each other full of upbeat tones. He looks at the _ka'athyra_ on his desk, glad that he can use it to discourage the inevitable _chitchat_ that makes these gatherings such a chore.

Feeling his anxiety rising, he slides the book from his pocket and lets it fall open to a page.

_I am drawn to you against my will. I ravish you in my dreams._

An image of Nyota in the lab, leaning forward, her hair in his fingers—

"Are you ready?"

He jumps at the sound of her voice. Fortunately his back is to the door; he lets his expression go neutral—and with it, he buttresses himself with his shields, corralling his emotions almost ruthlessly.

He cannot afford to slip. She must not see him slip.

In his left hand he still holds the book. He slides it back into its paper wrapping and into his jacket pocket.

Even if she saw it, she wouldn't know what was inside. He forces his heart to stop racing, and he turns around slowly.

Nyota is smiling.

"If you are," he says, and for a moment her smile fades, as if she senses how hard he must struggle to contain himself. Then she smiles again.

Spock leans over to pick up his _ka'athyra_ and Nyota says, "Are you playing?"

"Apparently so. I have been informed that music is essential for the festivities."

Her eyes linger on the _ka'athyra_ and he remembers the first time she asked to hold it. He had hurt her feelings then—not that she had said anything, but her face had fallen and her voice had been short. Here is a chance to offer her a small apology.

He picks the lyre up by the neck and holds it out towards her.

"As you are an accomplished musician in your own right, perhaps you would care to try it?"

He is looking at her as he speaks, but he is careful to keep his face from giving himself away.

"I thought you said—" she begins.

"Please," he says again, suddenly _fearful_ that she will refuse.

Tentatively she reaches out and lets her fingers curve around the elongated headstock. As he lets go, his fingertips brush her own—and again he holds his shields firmly in place.

To his amazement, he feels her reaching out—not physically, but mentally—and he redoubles his efforts to stay focused.

"Hold it thus," Spock says, miming what she should do. His hand touches her own again, bending her fingers around the circular tonal modulator.

No electricity—no stray thoughts betraying him across a nebulous connection. His relief is tremendous.

She gives the modulator a whirl and laughs.

"Use your other hand for the strings," Spock says, and Nyota lets her fingers drift across the twelve wrapped wires that extend from the soundboard up the neck. This time the lyre lets out a cascading trill.

"It's lovely!"

She tips her head up to meet his gaze and for a moment neither says anything.

"I hear music!" Dr. Carson says, poking his head into the office.

"Here, Commander," Nyota says, handing the lyre back to Spock. "I think everyone is waiting."

From his corner of the room Spock watches the professors and their aides come and go, most staying long enough for conversation and a sampling of food. Nyota has given herself the job of brewing the tea—a seemingly never-ending task. From time to time she brings him a fresh cup, setting it on the table near his elbow, then stepping back into the busyness of the party, at ease with the shifting chaos in a way that makes him marvel.

The _ka'athrya_ is an excellent prop, functioning like a book at dinner, keeping unwanted conversations at bay.

But as he plays, Spock is aware that the music itself is a comfort to him—that watching Nyota from across a crowded room is possible with the _ka'athyra_ in his hands, the music echoing his longing, and assuaging it, too.

He wonders again why his father sent it to him.

_Sometimes we have to let go of something to calculate its value._

T'Pring comes to mind—and his anger with her, diminished from meditation but not completely gone. In the calculus of gain and loss, is that relationship of value? Does he prize its worth?

He glances up and sees Nyota pouring tea for a student aide, her wrist graceful, her fingers tapered in a most aesthetically pleasing way—

As if she can sense his thoughts, she looks over at him and he feels himself respond, disturbingly, with an uncomfortable arousal.

He launches into a riff of frenetic chord progressions.

Eventually only the people with offices on the third floor are left in the break room, milling about.

"As always, the tea was delicious," Spock hears Professor Artura tell Nyota as he hold out his cup for more. "When you return from the break, you must show me how to make this variety."

"How long will you be gone?"

He had not known he would speak—had not thought beforehand about asking her anything about her holiday plans. Yet he does, before he can stop himself.

Another slip.

"A very good question," Nyota says, holding one hand over the lid of the teapot so she can let the last drop pour into Professor Artura's cup. "And one my mother would like to know the answer to. I guess it depends on when I finish up my project for Admiral Spaulding. I can't leave until then."

As a preemptive strike against any of Professor Artura's witticisms, Spock heads to his office.

Setting the _ka'athyra_ on his desktop, he slows his breathing and listens as Nyota follows, her footsteps stopping right behind him.

"Did my fingerprints ruin it?"

The _ka'athyra_. Sorrow that he hurt her once before…

"No. Not at all."

He feels himself about to fall, about to give in to his impulse to gather her in his arms and press her close. No one would know, would see…letting his shields buckle like sand under the pounding of a wave…

"Here," she says. "I brought you something."

He hears her rummaging in her backpack and he turns to see her holding a package in her hands.

He steps closer, not sure what he will do, trying to measure his breaths, slow his heart. Once again he senses her searching for him—and with a jolt he pulls himself from the brink.

How can he be so selfish?

He can offer her nothing but censure and pain.

Without taking his eyes from hers, he lifts the mug and pulls it free of the wrapping. Only then, when the mug sits flat in his own hand, does he look away.

"The ceramic shop," he says and Nyota nods and smiles.

"It matches your firepot, see? The same potter made them both."

The mug is a wonder—both smooth and rough, oddly misshapen in the same pleasing fashion as his _asenoi_.

Her care in selecting it shakes him.

"Thank you, Nyota."

His words have a surprising effect on her. Giving him a hard look, she takes a step closer, tipping her chin up and saying, "My turn."

She lifts her hand, palm up, in front of her, adding, "My gift. I saw you looking at it earlier. Don't try to hide it."

Spock blinks, saying, "Your gift?"

Her gift has caught him off guard—and he has nothing for her.

"In your pocket. The book. The one from Vulcan. I know it is there."

To his horror he immediately understands—and he sees her reaching toward him. If she touches him, he is certain he will lose himself—

But she pulls away at the last minute.

He can hardly breathe.

Giving her the book would be reckless, foolhardy. He has to think of an alternative, an excuse.

Without looking away, he feels himself, like a sleepwalker, pulling the book from his pocket and holding it out to her.

She unwraps it with a single motion. As she runs her hand over the cover, she sighs.

The familiar, miserable arousal floods him.

"It's lovely," she says, glancing up.

Squinting at the title page, she sounds out the only words she can: _T'Quir, Kohlar._

"Someone's name?"

"The authors," Spock says, glad for a chance to gather his thoughts. "The poets."

"Vulcan poetry! I didn't know Vulcans wrote poetry."

For a moment he panics, worried that she will read it out loud. Now that the book has become a gift, it is transformed from a private musing to something more…symbolic.

What if she is offended by it? Or worse, if she considers it an invitation?

"What's wrong—" she begins, but he says, "I…it is not contemporary…poetry…but from the pre-Enlightenment period. You might…find it…interesting."

His dodge is transparent, even to him. If he had any sense at all, he would take the book back, apologize for the confusion. Before he can, she starts to move away, and he beats back his dismay by saying, "Thank you for the mug. It was well chosen."

And without another word, he steps around her, picks up his _ka'athrya_ from the top of the desk, and leaves the office.

If he doesn't get away—

He cranes his hearing backward as he makes his way down the three flights of stairs, both relieved and disappointed that she doesn't try to follow him.

The late afternoon air is cold—something that he usually finds mildly irritating, but today welcomes. He walks so quickly that his lungs soon burn, and that, too, is welcome.

The situation with Nyota is becoming intolerable—he really ought to tell her before the break that she needs to find another position for the second semester. She will be upset, naturally, and may take his dismissal as a referendum on her abilities.

He will have to be careful not to let her think that he is in any way displeased with her performance—that he is dissatisfied with her work.

But even as he runs this scenario in his imagination, he knows he will not follow through.

Her presence in his life, as confined as it is, as limited in its expression, is the best part of who he is.

No wonder that he has been unable to exorcise her with meditation, with exercise, with poetry. Even his anger at T'Pring feels anemic when compared to the intensity of his emotions for Nyota.

_K'diwa._

He's never called anyone _k'diwa_ before. Has never been tempted to. And still has not, not really. A slip of the tongue does not count as a declaration of emotion.

Even if it is.

_A gift should show the recipient your regard._

He squirms, thinking of Nyota reading the poetry, his fantasies laid bare.

If she asks, he will have to lie.

Otherwise, he will be tempted to tell her that what she thinks she knows about him is all wrong, that he has come close to sacrificing their safety—thoughtlessly throwing their careers on a pyre, all because he cannot master the feelings that continue to betray him.

Time for a healer, perhaps, someone to bolster his resolve, or ease his obsessive thoughts.

By the time he gets to his apartment, he is actually short-winded and shaking with cold. He palms the temperature to its highest setting and strips, standing in a shower with water so hot that the automatic warning keeps signaling.

Warmed at last, he stops the water and dries off, slipping on sleeping clothes and swaddling himself in the duvet from his bed. Wearing it like a robe, he heads back to the living area, looking for a moment at the picture cube of himself and his mother, feeling a strange spasm of homesickness worthy of Odysseus, before settling himself on the couch, reaching for his father's _ka'athyra_.

With a flick of his wrist he dials the tonal modulator and adjusts it, but before he can let his fingers settle on the strings, he sees a mark on the headstock, a singular smudge darker than the maroon wood. Holding the _ka'athyra_ up to the light, he inspects it—his own fingerprint, he is sure, like the ones on the soundboard—but no, this one is not his.

It is small and oval, and almost so fleeting that he hadn't noticed it at all.

For a long time he stares at it, lost.

_Sometimes we have to let go of something to calculate its value._

This has to stop. He has to let go, to make her a gift of a future without complications.

With a deliberate motion he presses his own finger over Nyota's print. When he pulls his finger away he doesn't look for her mark. It is enough to know that it is gone.


	15. Finale: Desert

**Chapter 15**

**Finale: Desert**

**Disclaimer: I watch and tell without owning much at all.**

She sleeps through the tremor.

Registering 4.4 on the old Richter Scale, it causes little damage on campus—one broken window on the second floor of the biological sciences building, a ruptured gas main in the cafeteria.

The ruptured gas main is the only reason Nyota learns about the quake at all. A large sign on the cafeteria door alerts the few students still left on campus before the winter break that a hot breakfast is unavailable. Nyota doesn't care. She normally just grabs yogurt or a bagel anyway.

This morning she adds a second cup of coffee to her usual meal. She shouldn't have stayed up so late, but Spock's gift of the Vulcan poetry book had been a Lorelei, pulling her onward, each page a revelation.

Not that she is prudish, but the Vulcan poetry seems to Nyota to be more _intense_ than the human erotica she has read. It's a surprise—this _intensity_ from people most assume are without any emotions at all.

What we think we know about Vulcans may be completely wrong, she thinks.

As she finishes her meager breakfast and walks to the language building, Nyota's resolve to speak about the book with Spock begins to falter. She can't think of any way to ask about his reason for such a provocative gift without asking the deeper, harder question that underpins it.

_What do I mean to you?_

Even thinking about it now makes her feel foolish, like someone with a silly schoolgirl crush.

Maybe the best plan would be to say nothing unless he brings it up first.

 _Have you read any of the book I gave you_ , he might say, and she will either lie and tell him no, or she will look away and admit that she has, and now that he mentions it, she has several questions to ask.

More likely, he will say nothing, his purpose in giving it to her simply the usual holiday gift exchange between professors and their aides.

To her dismay, Nyota feels a flutter of anxiety when she pushes open the language building door and starts up the stairs. She's never been anxious around Spock before—not even when he was at his most formidable as her professor.

The book has changed the equation between them, tipping the balance into unknown territory.

When she reaches the top of the third floor landing, she sees that the lights are on in his office. As she makes her way down the hall, she hears voices from inside.

"Good morning, Professor," Nyota says, surprised to see Professor Artura standing inside with Spock. Both men look up when she speaks, and for a moment Spock looks…grateful, or relieved.

"This series of aftershocks has been most disturbing," the Andorian says in his lisping accent. "But Commander Spock tells me that seismic prediction is unreliable."

"The variables are so great as to render any meaningful predictions moot," Spock says, and Nyota lets her backpack drift from her shoulder to the floor.

"This makes the second one in two months, doesn't it?" she says. "I slept right through it. I guess you can get used to anything."

"Most disturbing," Professor Artura says again, shuffling past Nyota out the door.

"Andorians are," Spock says, "unusually sensitive to geologic events. Their antennae have an electromagnetic sensor that keeps them spatially oriented—"

Normally Nyota finds Spock's scientific musings interesting, but today she has trouble focusing on his words. Instead, she tries to imagine hearing him read Vulcan poetry.

With a mental shake she settles herself behind the computer console where she checks and sorts Spock's mail. She keeps her back turned to his desk, willing herself not to fidget.

_I am drawn to you against my will._

She should never have stayed up so late reading.

For almost an hour she manages to soothe herself with mundane work. By now she recognizes the names of Spock's frequent correspondents—most of them non-Terrans doing Federation grant research projects. Occasionally Spock gets personal mail in his box, mostly from Vulcan addresses, though also from a few on earth, and she sets those aside for him to read later.

Today he has an official Academy notice from the Dean's office. She wonders briefly if it concerns the recent loyalty oath; the idea makes her flush with anger.

"I need a break," she says suddenly, turning and standing. Spock is sorting through a stack of student PADDs on his desk—probably the last of the computer science exams—but he puts down the one in his hand and nods.

Together they make their way to the break room across the hall, and there at one of the small round tables are Professor Artura and his aide, a short freckled first year cadet named Dawson.

"Join us!" Professor Artura says. To her left, Nyota feels Spock pull back a fraction, and she steps forward.

"I just came to make some tea," she says, and Professor Artura stretches out his hand and points to the electric kettle.

"The water is already hot," he says. "Perhaps you can brew some more of that tea you made yesterday."

Nyota recognizes an invitation when she hears it, so she busies herself opening the tea canister and measuring out the leaves into the porcelain teapot on the counter. She fills it with water from the kettle and opens the overhead cabinet to retrieve some mugs.

"Use this one," Spock says, holding the mug she gave him after the party, and she looks up at him and smiles.

"You like it?"

"How unusual," Professor Artura says before Spock can answer. "Did you make it?"

At that, Nyota laughs.

"Oh, no, not me! A local potter made it—I found it over on Kober Street. It matches the Commander's…."

Professor Artura is watching her closely, his antennae pointed forward in an attitude of attentiveness.

"….firepot…."

Nyota stumbles to a halt, averting her gaze from Spock. In all things he is intensely private—and here she is speaking of his personal possessions with a freedom that may embarrass him.

To her relief Professor Artura asks for no clarification, and she pours a cup of tea for herself and one for Spock and finally looks up at him to hand him his mug.

 _I'm sorry,_ she tries to say, cutting her eyes briefly away.

"Are you going home for the holidays?" Cadet Dawson asks, and for a moment Nyota isn't certain that he is speaking to her. Professor Artura's aide is so quiet that Nyota has sometimes wondered if he is simply shy by nature or intimidated by Spock. If so, he isn't the only cadet who clams up around him.

Not that she ever has. Indeed, her first class with him involved too many arguments to recall—not arguments, really, but disagreements about procedural matters or grading rubrics. Most of the time Spock's point of view prevailed when they tangled, though she never felt bowled over, and she usually left feeling that he had at least heard her out, even if he refused to change a grade or a rule.

She suspects that part of the reason he hired her as his aide is because he values her willingness to challenge him. How many people in his life will actually confront him, call him to account?

Except that today she feels unequal to the task.

_I ravish you in my dreams._

Why that line of poetry marked with a fingerprint?

And what makes her think it is connected in any way to her?

It could be about that Vulcan woman looking out of the picture cube with dark-eyed, sultry beauty.

"I need to go home some time," she says to Cadet Dawson. "But I have this huge project to finish—and my roommate will be here. The dorm is already so empty—I hate leaving her."

She takes a gulp of her tea and almost chokes. From the corner of her eye she sees Spock watching her closely.

"Spock," Professor Artura says, motioning with his hand, "your tea will get cold if you don't drink it quickly."

Nyota peers at her own half-empty cup and laughs. Maybe her jitters today are caffeine overload—

"Just hold your hand around your mug if it does," she says, aping a breeziness she doesn't feel.

Spock looks down at his mug and Nyota laughs again, realizing that she has confused him.

"I mean, you could heat up that mug just by touching it," she said. "You're hot enough."

"I assume," Spock says, raising an eyebrow, "you mean that my core temperature is higher than the temperature of the tea."

"I think the cadet is making a pun," Professor Artura says silkily. "Surely you know the double meaning of the word _hot_ in human vernacular. And perhaps she is making a comparison, too—saying that _she_ is a tea mug."

Cadet Dawson splutters.

For the first time that she can remember, Nyota feels genuine anger at the Andorian professor. She darts a glance at Spock and sees him flush.

"Or perhaps the cadet simply means what she says, that Vulcan physiology is not the same as human," Spock says, his voice with the smallest edge to it.

Professor Artura shakes his head and rises, and his assistant follows. As soon as they are out of the break room, Nyota places her hand flat on the table between them and says, "I'm sorry he misconstrued what I said. I didn't mean to embarrass you—"

And then, attempting to lighten the mood, she adds, "Although, you could have replied that I could cool a mug of tea with my human touch."

To illustrate, she wraps her hands around her mug and lifts it, grinning.

"But the professor compared _you_ to the tea mug," Spock says, picking up his own mug and cupping it in his palm, "not _me._ We would have to change the metaphor."

And he runs his finger tenderly across the uneven surface of the mug before looking her in the face.

The sensuality of his finger stroke—the clear reference to her as the mug in his hand—is so startling that Nyota's face grows hot and she jumps up, knocking the table and splashing tea over the edge of her cup.

"Oh!" she says, grabbing a towel from the counter and wiping up her spill. "I'm just…clumsy today."

When she finishes and returns to the office, Spock is gathering up the student PADDs and closing down his computer.

"Are you finished?" she asks, surprised. Obviously he is—and is rushing to get away. His movements are so unlike him—so ungraceful—that she feels a flash of alarm. He is quitting the field, as distant and removed as he was yesterday, and with as little explanation.

"Let me help you," she says, leaning over the side of the desk and pulling several PADDs toward her into a pile. He pauses, holding up his hand to stop her.

"Your assistance is not necessary."

In the overhead light his hand is half in shadow, but Nyota's eye is drawn to his palm—a mottled green and gray blister across the heel of his hand.

"What happened!"

Instinctively she reaches for his wrist, circling it with her thumb and forefinger, tipping his palm up.

The blister is thick and angry looking. She senses his resistance to her touch—he is pulling back—and she grips his wrist tighter, feeling his pulse like a frightened hummingbird under her thumb.

"How did you do this?" Her own alarm makes her voice hoarse and strident. She adjusts her stance so that she is standing inches from him, her other hand reaching up to cradle his injured one.

His skin is fever hot. Nyota looks up at his face and sees a sheen of fine sweat across his brow.

"A burn," Spock says, tugging his hand against her grip.

"Stop!" Nyota says, and to her amazement, he does. "You haven't treated this, have you? It's all blistered, maybe infected. Let me get the med kit from the break room."

At last she releases him as she hurries to the cabinet where the med kit is stored. She remembers finding it once before—when Spock cut his hand on the broken picture cube.

"You know," she says as she re-enters his office, "we had to do this after the last earthquake. Remember?"

She sets the large rectangular med kit box on the desk and flips it open. Inside are various antibiotic and analgesic sprays, but Spock picks up a dermaplast instead.

"Give me that," Nyota says, and again she is amazed that he complies. She unwraps the dermaplast and reaches again for his hand.

"I'll try not to hurt you," she says, and as she does, she looks up and catches an odd expression crossing his face. For a moment she pauses—and in the stillness she thinks about what she has been missing the past two days, a sense of his presence—and more than that, an awareness of who she is through his vision.

"Don't," she says, letting the word do double duty. _Don't move your hand. Don't hold yourself back like this._

If she insists, if she presses forward, she knows she will break something inside him—and with a start, she realizes that she isn't sure that she wants to.

Or that he wants her to.

_I am drawn to you against my will._

She sets the dermaplast gingerly across the burn, sliding her fingers around the edges to help it adhere. Her hand slows and then stops, her palm resting on his.

Heat, and thirst—she is suddenly overwhelmed with a need for water and air. Looking up quickly from his hand to his face, she is distraught to see pain there—and then, without warning, she sees him close his eyes, his breath exhaling in a single rush.

Images of the desert flood her imagination—shimmers of heat hovering over red sand, and in the background, jagged mountains looking like bricks heaved into piles. Without needing to look she knows that at her feet are thick-trunked succulents and spiny brush-like plants leaning permanently into the wind, and further off, over the mountains, large birds catching a thermal updraft.

 _Va'khen_ —the birds are called _va'khen_ —she has always known this—has watched them a hundred times in their flight over the western mountains near Shi'Kahr.

The imagery is so vivid, so fraught with longing and homesickness that she closes her eyes to see it better, and there in the purple twilight she hears a predator's growl. Detecting the faintest skitter across a rock, she leans down, watching a six-legged _a'lazb_ rushing for cover.

The vastness, the richness of the desert as the sun sets, delights her, and she opens her eyes and looks up at Spock, his own eyes still pressed tightly shut.

"Your home!" she whispers, blinking back tears. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

Dimly she is aware that she is still grasping his hand.

" _Please—"_ Spock says, opening his eyes and giving her such an unreadable look that she feels her heart in her throat. He holds his uninjured hand across his chest like a buckler.

Slowly, slowly she unfurls her fingers from his.

She isn't sure what to say. She has just violated everything she knows about approaching a touch telepath—ignoring his personal space with such flagrant disregard that she is abashed. Taking a step back, she hears herself breathing hard.

"Commander, I'm—"

But nothing she can say will bring the kind of absolution she needs. She is not sorry she touched him—is, in fact, glad that she did, that she felt him again—not just the warmth of his hand, but the impressions of his mind.

For she is certain that the images that flooded her were his—though the idea that they were not given freely makes her ashamed.

"Please," Spock says again, though even as she listens, she hears his voice take on a different quality than before—more determined, more defined. "Be safe as you travel home."

"I will," she says, flustered, suspecting that some truth has been refused admission to the conversation, that whatever he had been about to say has been silenced.

With that, he turns toward his desk and gathers up the other PADDs and notebooks, not looking back as she picks up her backpack and slips it over her shoulder.

Pausing in the doorway, Nyota waits a beat to see if he will say anything else, but Spock is busy packing his satchel and clearing his desk. She walks on down the hall, looking into the darkened break room before heading down the steps.

As she had yesterday, she measures her steps to her thoughts, walking slowing across the campus as she tries to sort out what happened just now. When did this relationship become so awkward, so hard to understand?

She thinks again about her first day working as Spock's aide—her resolve not to quit despite an inauspicious beginning. But soon enough they had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, working with students in the lab or discussing their different ongoing projects.

Walking down Kober Street to the ceramics shop—or the quick trip to the tea shop in Sausalito—times spent bantering good-naturedly, a pleasant diversion from work—why have those times become rare?

He's clearly uncomfortable with her. And yet—

She culls back through the images of his home—not just the visual impressions, but the emotional overtones they conjured up in her—in _him_ —the sense of safety, of refuge—of a need to feel the comfort of the dry heat of the desert, and paradoxically, the sense of being parched, with an ache so intense that his thoughts are consumed with it.

With _her_.

And suddenly she knows this. As sure as she knows anything, she knows this.

He isn't upset with her. He's running away.

With a stumble she stops in her tracks, a student following close behind forced to veer off the paved pathway to avoid bumping into her.

"Sorry!" she says apologetically to the retreating student's back. For a minute she continues to stand immobile in the center of the path—and then with a lurch, she pivots around and heads back to the language building.

She takes the steps two at a time, but even before she reaches the third floor, she knows Spock is not there. She doesn't _feel_ him there.

Sure enough, from the landing she sees that the office lights are off, the door closed.

Pelting back down the stairs, she comes to a decision.

The faculty apartment building where Spock lives is across campus—a five minute sprint that she makes in four. By the time she gets to the door, she is breathing heavily and she leans over, her hands on her knees, as she catches her breath.

When she can breathe without huffing, she reaches up and presses the call button for the intercom.

Nothing.

She hadn't considered that he might have gone anywhere else. His satchel was full of PADDs—and he had work to finish. It wouldn't be.. _logical_ …to go anywhere else. In spite of herself she grins at her deduction.

And then she hears footsteps behind the door and she watches the handle flip down.

"Commander—" she prepares to say, not sure what else she will tell him.

But when the outside door opens, a young woman buttoning a heavy green overcoat exits, and seeing Nyota standing there, holds the door obligingly. With a nod, Nyota slips through, walking the short distance to Spock's apartment door.

Through the glass inset she can see that a light is on inside.

The building door behind her slams shut suddenly and she jumps.

This is probably a very bad idea. _Turn around right now and go back out_.

But she is nailed to the floor, unable to move, paralyzed. She shuts her eyes and tries to feel again his desert longing.

Like someone in a dream, she raises her hand against her will and presses the chime, trusting that when he opens the door some words will come to her. She leans close to the door and says, "Commander Spock?"

Down the hall another door opens and an older man emerges, moving quickly past her and pushing open the outside door. Nyota follows him with her gaze, bracing herself as a gush of cool air rushes in. When she turns back to Spock's door, she angles her head to look more closely through the small pebbled glass inset. Light only, and nothing more distinct.

She presses the chime again.

Obviously her brilliant deduction about his hurrying home is incorrect. An errand, or a meal at one of the nearby diners—something has delayed him. So much for being able to _feel_ where he is.

For a moment she considers waiting—but that presupposes that he will be home sometime soon. She has little to base that conclusion on.

Fishing her comm from her pocket, she considers giving him a call, but something gives her pause.

" _Please"—_ she had heard him say. At the time she had thought he was asking her to remove her hand. Now she isn't sure.

She slips the comm back into her pocket and pulls out her paper memo pad. A comm call demands a reply. A note grants him more freedom, more time.

 _Where are you_? she writes. _I'm sorry if I upset you._

In two sentences she manages to be both petulant and maudlin. She tears the paper in half and tucks it into her pocket.

 _I am not leaving for several days,_ she rehearses, preparing to write _. Call me if you need anything._

Better, but still impersonal.

 _I am not leaving for several days_ , she writes. _Call me if you need—_

For a moment she hesitates.

_-me."_

There. The right word. The word she means.

She folds the note in half and shoves it into the mail slot beside the door.

It's an overture if he wants it to be. Otherwise, simple information only.

Like a desert landscape with a muted palette and hidden life—available if he looks closely, if he risks the journey.

X X X X X X X

The trip home took _forever_.

 _An exaggeration_ , of course, the kind his mother liked to use to make her descriptions more colorful, more entertaining, less…factual.

The flitter ride took, Spock knew, 14.7 minutes.

_Forever._

His father drove in stony silence; his mother's face was pinched in distress. From the back seat Spock caught glimpses of them in the rear-facing mirrors, though he tried to keep his gaze focused on the landscape whizzing by.

Not until they were back home—his father going immediately to his study and closing the door—had his mother followed him to his bedroom, propping her hand on the door frame, watching him as he sat on the side of his bed.

"So," Amanda said, her voice uncharacteristically tentative, "aren't you going to tell me anything?"

"You know everything there is to tell, Mother," Spock said. "I have decided on Starfleet instead."

"But," she began, "I thought—"

Spock glanced at his mother and she fell silent. What more was there to say? He had thought the same thing as well, that he would accept his appointment to the Vulcan Science Academy—his education, his academic achievements, validated at last.

As they were. The High Councilor had made that clear.

With two steps Amanda moved toward the bed and sat beside him, her arm trailing his, her fingers drifting over the top of his hand. A surge of sorrow engulfed him as she did—like a wave he could neither anticipate nor control.

For several minutes they sat that way, until Amanda stood up, sighing.

"I meant what I said," she said, pausing in the door. "Whatever you do, I am proud of you."

He slept poorly that night, waking frequently and listening for the telltale sounds that often followed some disagreement about him—his parents arguing quietly, intensely. But tonight he heard only the night sounds of insects and occasional calls of _va'khen_ as they circled overhead, looking for unwary prey.

Close to morning he dozed off at last, sleeping through the sound of his father taking the flitter to town. Vaguely he was aware of his mother's movements—kitchen noises and the smell of Terran coffee wafting down the hall, and later he heard her turning on the shower.

He roused himself reluctantly and made his way to the kitchen, slicing some flatbread and pouring himself a cup of coffee. Balancing his breakfast in one hand, he went outside on the veranda, standing near the edge and watching the shadows race across the surface of the nearest hills as the sun rose.

A day ago this had been an ordinary view, nothing more than the scenery outside his house.

Now it was a place soon to be lost to him—a place he would visit from time to time, and come to in his imagination or his dreams, perhaps, but a place that was no longer home.

His coffee and bread finished, he set his cup on the ledge and pushed open the gate at the top of the stone steps leading to the garden. From the border he could see that the Terran pepper plants his mother had germinated from seeds several months ago were already waist high. A row of spindly Vulcan ones grew beside them in a scraggly line. How odd that the native plants were lagging so dramatically in development. Spock stepped over several small hills of tubers until he reached the pepper plants, leaning down and fingering their leaves.

The Vulcan plants were paper thin—their leaves only a few cells wide, the better to absorb the infrequent rainfall. On the other hand, the thin leaves also lost moisture faster than the Terran plants with their fat, almost greasy outer layering—

Spock reached out to pluck a leaf from a cayenne bush to examine when something stung him sharply on his wrist. Jerking back in alarm, he caught a glimpse of a _k'karee_ , its blue-gray coloration helping it blend into the shadows under the pepper plants.

A juvenile, fortunately, only six to eight inches long, its snakelike body undulating from side to side until it was out of sight.

Immediately Spock turned toward the house and loped across the garden. An adult _k'karee_ could inject enough neurotoxin to kill a full-size _le-matya_ with a single bite. The few Vulcans who were bitten each year rarely died—unless, of course, they did not get the anti-venom in time.

Already his breathing was becoming labored, though from anxiety or because of the venom, Spock wasn't sure. He tried to slow his breathing and conserve his energy, but by the time he reached the stone steps, he was so lightheaded that he thought he might faint.

And then he did fall—the ground rushing up to meet him, his mouth filling with dirt and sand.

With a supreme effort he turned his head so that his nose was clear of the ground.

It was the last movement he would make for the next 20 hours.

He could feel his body, but he couldn't move it. Underneath his left rib a rock jabbed him with every breath. His ankle had twisted in the fall and throbbed, and his wrist was bent at an unnatural angle.

With the paralysis was a tingling, burning sensation in the nerve endings in his hands and feet. He tried to call out but could not move his mouth, could not even take a breath forceful enough to cough.

His mother had been in the shower when he walked down to the garden. Although he typically kept his thoughts and feelings tucked away from his parents, he focused on opening up to his mother, alerting her to his distress.

Nothing he had felt so far—not the shock of seeing the _k'karee_ hanging for a sickening moment from his wrist, not the near-panic of feeling his knees buckle or his arms turn into useless heavy things—nothing frightened him as much as realizing that for the first time in his life he was really and truly mindblind.

His mother was not there. Nor his father, nor even the faint presence of T'Pring.

No one. With one stroke the _k'karee_ had rendered him mute and deaf in every way possible.

He refused to panic. Logically, his mother would notice his absence soon and would find him here, humped over at the bottom of the steps. She would call the medics, the anti-venom would be administered in a timely fashion, and the paralysis would recede. A day or so to recover—and no lasting ill effects.

All he had to do was keep his wits about him, cultivating patience while waiting to be discovered.

His time sense was not affected by the neurotoxin, nor was his spatial orientation. He knew that his head was a meter from the rock wall that surrounded the veranda, that he was lying on a southwesterly axis, that 4.52 minutes had passed from the time he was bitten until now.

Hardly any time at all.

_Forever._

His face was turned away from the sun but he could feel the heat on his ear and neck—and if he concentrated, on the upturned palms of his hands.

The rest of his torso was covered by his long-sleeved sleeping clothes—the loose pants and baggy shirt rucked up underneath him. Somewhere between the row of pepper plants and the veranda wall he had lost his sandals.

He tried again to reach his mother through their bond.

Silence.

The rock under his rib shortened his breath. The sun began to burn the tip of his ear.

Blinking became more difficult, though he still retained some control of his eyes. He was afraid to close them, afraid he would not be able to open them again.

Another 22 minutes went by, and still his mother did not come outside. Something skittered over the sole of his foot. The dirt in his mouth left a tang of iron.

He was a bundle of random impressions—a chaos of sensations without any control. He forced himself to calm down, to think about something besides the pain in his arm, the throb in his ankle.

Yesterday. He would think about yesterday. It had started out so propitiously. After an early morning run he had showered and dressed before either of his parents had risen. Too nervous to sit still, he had made himself tea and then had drunk it while pacing around in the study, running his fingers along the edges of his father's books, flicking the newsfeeds on and off, stretching out on the sofa and willing himself to settle down before his father noticed.

_"I am hardly anxious."_

Even as he told his mother this later while they waited in the anteroom at the Vulcan Science Academy, he had not expected her to believe it. The words were wishful thinking more than a statement of fact.

_Where was his mother now?_

_Time flies when you are having fun_ , she often said, and though he reassured her that his own sense of the passage of time was steady, chronological, immutable, he understood the metaphor. Perhaps thinking about yesterday would not be the best way to pass time now.

Instead, he replayed his last chess match with his teacher, Truvik, watching the moves again in his mind's eye, and discovering, to his amazement, that the memories also called up the original emotional associations. When Truvik conceded defeat at last, Spock felt a flush of satisfaction that he recalled perfectly—indeed that he felt again, as if the match were just now concluding.

He had always known that he could recall mental images eidetically. How odd that he had not realized that his emotional life was equally available for review.

87 minutes since the _k'karee_ bite.

An insect whizzed in front of his eyes, hovering for a moment before speeding away.

He recalled a particularly difficult piece of music he had learned for the _ka'athyra_ , his mother's pleasure when he played it for her, his father's quiet approval humming through the bond.

"I have nothing left to teach you," the musician T'Cara had told him recently, and Spock had felt both pleased and sad at her words.

The sun moved higher in the sky and a shimmer of heat waffled the air. He was in real pain now, his focus so scattered that he could no longer submerge it. His thirst was another kind of pain, and for a moment he imagined the pleasure of biting down on his tongue, releasing a trickle of blood to wet his mouth. It remained a fantasy only.

He began to worry about his mother. By now she must have noticed his absence, must have seen that his bedroom door was open, that he was not inside. Could she have fallen in the shower, or become ill? Could she have left the house without him knowing? He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

The _k'karee_ toxin was making his stomach sour—and for a moment he was afraid that he might vomit and choke himself, unable to clear to his throat. In growing desperation he tried to find his parents through the bond—but it was as if he was standing in an abandoned house, calling out to people who had moved away long ago.

Even during his _kahs-wan_ he had not felt so alone. Or as helpless.

So this was what T'Pring's grandmother, bound to a motorized wheelchair, dealt with, and he hadn't understood until now. T'Zela managed to navigate her world with curiosity and good humor. Would he be able to accept such a situation with the same grace?

This speculation was neither logical nor…comforting.

"Spock!"

His mother's voice from the veranda—his heart beat faster in relief.

But instead of hearing her rushing down the stone steps to where he lay in the sand, Spock listened to the clink of his abandoned coffee mug being picked up from the ledge, the soft shuffle of his mother's footfalls, and the door to the house open and close with a muted bang.

She hadn't seen him.

In a flash he realized that he lay so close to the retaining wall that his mother would not have noticed him unless she had leaned over the railing of the veranda and looked straight down. More likely she had noticed his cup and called out, thinking he was in the garden.

His despair almost overwhelmed him.

By now the sun was close to being overhead. The pinna of his ear was so badly burned that he was sure it was covered with blisters. As the sunlight crept across his face, his eyes fluttered open and shut reflexively—until suddenly, without warning, his vision blacked out, as if someone had turned off the light.

"Mother!"

When he was 13 and drowning in the spillway, he had called out to his mother across the void—across the vastness of space as he sank to the bottom of the river in Seattle, calling to her as she planted desert flowers in the front yard of his home on Vulcan—and she had heard him.

Now he was a few dozen meters from where she sorted the breakfast dishes and drank a second cup of coffee—and he could not speak and she could not hear.

The irony was not lost on him.

The _k'karee_ had bitten him four hours and six minutes ago.

If this were a chess game, what would he do now? He pictured Truvik sitting in his office at the school, musing over a chess game in play.

 _What you want,_ his teacher had told him, _is mastery over your opponent. What you_ _ **need**_ _is mastery over yourself._

What hubris to think that he had mastered anything about himself! The _k'karee_ had given the lie to that notion.

Even yesterday, as he stood before the admissions committee at the Vulcan Science Academy, he had given in to his emotions in a way that Truvik would have found disturbing.

Not simply because he betrayed the ideal of Vulcan equanimity, but because he had tipped his hand and revealed his vulnerability.

Stonn had taken advantage of him for years for just that reason.

_If you ignore the dangers from below, you will continue to lose._

He must have slipped into delirium for a little while as he lay sightless, his body leached of moisture from the heat, his mouth so parched that when he became aware again, his thirst was all-consuming, eclipsing the jab from the rock under his rib, worse than his sprained ankle or his wrist, wrenched and numb.

He thought of water, imagined dipping his head under the spigot in the kitchen, letting the cold water run over his chapped lips and swollen tongue. Or biting into a ripe _kaasa_ , the juice running down his chin. Or dipping his spoon into a bowl of _plomeek_ soup, laced with cumin as his mother made it, or even bland, the way T'Pring preferred.

He imagined T'Pring with a spoon at her lips and thought about the first time he had kissed her—one afternoon at T'Zela's house, when he was 14 and still hopeful that they might become friends. She had been skeptical when he told her what he wanted to try—had eyed him with what he realized later was mild distaste—but had agreed to humor him, standing stock still and letting him approach her. And as he had seen his parents do, he pressed his mouth to hers, feeling the firmness of her lips and her warm breath as she exhaled.

If she was disappointed, she did not show it. His own disappointment, however, stayed with him for some time—and not until recently had either of them shown any further interest in each other sexually.

She would be angry about yesterday, he knew.

If he could only have a drink of water, he could clear the dust from his throat and explain it to her. And she would have to listen, would have to understand.

At some point in the afternoon he heard his mother's flitter start up. Errands, or a meeting with the students she was tutoring at the local secondary school, two boys and a girl struggling with proficiency in Standard. Spock had met them once when he had borrowed the flitter and dropped her off at the school first.

"You should speak to them," his mother said. "They want to meet the famous chess champion."

But he had demurred, embarrassed by his mother's drawing attention to him this way.

"It won't take but a minute," Amanda had insisted. Realizing that continuing to resist would waste more time than a quick trip into the building, Spock had reluctantly agreed and walked his mother to the classroom where the three children sat waiting.

The boys were brothers, only two years apart in age—a rarity in Vulcan families. The girl could not have been older than 10, though she looked much smaller and younger.

Their eyes lit up when his mother entered the room—surprising Spock with their obvious display of affection for his mother.

"I told you I'd bring him one day," she said, waving her arm toward him. The children sat mutely, staring at him, and Amanda stood to the side, as if she were waiting for him to do something. After an awkward moment he told the children hello and then turned and walked back out. It wasn't what his mother had wanted from him—he was sure of that—but he was at a loss to know what she _had_ wanted. He thought little more about it.

Until now, lying in the cooling air as the sun started to slip behind the distant mountains.

The noise of the flitter returned—and his mother's voice again, calling him as she walked through the house.

A second flitter soon after—his father coming home.

As the sun set completely, the temperature fell and Spock began to shake in the cold.

"Something is wrong," he heard his mother say when she opened the kitchen door briefly. "He didn't even take a bag—"

"He will contact you when he wants to," Sarek said.

The door shut again and the voices became too indistinct to make out.

When he had lain on the ground 14 hours and 10 minutes after the _k'karee_ bite, he blinked his eyes rapidly at the fuzzy image that suddenly swam in front of him. For a fraction of a second he thought of the stories he and his friends had entertained themselves with as children, of _sirshos'im_ , wraithlike soul eaters who wandered the desert, pretending to befriend travelers before stealing their _katras_.

He blinked again, and the fuzzy image resolved itself into T'Kuht, Vulcan's sister planet, at this time of the month a mere slender crescent of white. In a few minutes, his vision was clear enough that he could see stars as they emerged in the darkening sky.

With a start, Spock realized that his inner eyelid must have slid into place earlier, protecting his eyesight from the direct rays of the sun. Now that the sun had set—

_Fascinating._

The night sounds began in earnest—the keening of _va'khen_ on the hunt, the soughing of the wind as the thermal updrafts picked up. He remembered the night he and Sybok had slept out under the stars—until the _le-matya_ had stalked them. The breathless run back across the wasteland in Sybok's arms—his father's silent fury later.

That night Spock had been certain that he was dying—that his _katra_ would drift away, unmoored to anyone or anything. He began to wonder if he was playing out the same scenario now.

His thirst raged on.

Even as his parents turned off the house lights and retired for the night, Spock dreamed of water. He sniffed the air, hoping for dew. And then, almost 20 hours after the _k'karee_ bit him, he moved his tongue from the top of his mouth and thrust it into the cold air between his teeth.

_He had moved._

Elated, he twitched his cheek.

And waggled the fingers of one hand, and then the other.

In a few minutes he spit out the dirt still in his mouth and turned his head slowly to the other side.

With movement came renewed pain—though this pain was welcomed, a harbinger of good tidings.

Before he could walk he had to stand, and before he could stand he had to sit for a few minutes and focus on breathing. At last, however, he was able to place one foot on the bottom stone step, and then, with a shambling, forward motion, he climbed the steps to the veranda.

With a shaking hand he reached out and pushed open the door to the kitchen. There was the spigot he had fantasized about for hours.

Not bothering to wash the sand and dirt from his mouth, he turned the tap on and leaned into the stream of water, gulping it down, feeling the grit on his tongue and between his teeth. He drank and drank—and then promptly threw it all up in the sink, his stomach a hard, painful knot.

He leaned back into the water, letting it run into his mouth but being more careful to drink slowly, tipping his head back and letting the water run over his face, the chill of the water against his sunburned skin almost unbearable.

"What are you doing?"

His mother flipped on the kitchen lights and rushed to his side, and Spock closed his eyes and searched for her in his mind. She was there, her worry as bright as a fire, and her relief even brighter.

He was too tired to speak. Instead, opening his eyes he watched her hovering beside him, and he showed her the image of the _k'karee_ in the garden, and himself sprawled across the ground.

He felt rather than heard his father moving rapidly to the study where he called the medics.

The next day he slept until deep in the morning. As he had known she would be, his mother was there when he awoke, ready to ply him with the first of many cups of tea he drank that day in a futile attempt to feel fully hydrated.

His father had already left by the time Spock rose, which was not surprising. After all, Sarek had work to do in town, and the medics had assured him that his son would recover—had marveled, in fact, at the function of Spock's human spleen.

That night when he returned home, Sarek said little at the evening meal and went to the study and shut his door afterward.

Over a final cup of tea, Amanda exchanged glances with Spock.

"You should speak to him," she said, but this time Spock could not make himself comply.

He went to bed soon after, his arms folded behind his head, careful not to dislodge the dermaplasts on his badly burned ear and the palms of his hands. The burns were nothing—a few more days and he could remove his bandages. He doubted he would even have any scarring.

His thirst, however, could not be slaked.

Or rather, the ghost of his thirst, like a mythical _sirshos'im_ , sidling up to him and stealing his contentment.

Like his father's anger and disappointment, which threatened to travel with him no matter how far he ran.

X X X X X X X X

He is meditating when the tremor strikes.

One minute he is sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, his lighted _asenoi_ flickering before him, and the next he is reaching out instinctively to catch the firepot as it tumbles from its tripod.

As he stretches his hands forward, the hot, fragrant oil spills onto his palm and ignites the area rug where he sits. A human would have cursed; Spock almost does.

With his left hand he grabs the _asenoi_ , lowering it to the floor gently. With his right hand he pounds the floor and smothers the flame. Oil is everywhere—soaking his pants leg, spreading in a puddle across floor, even splashing onto his _ka'athyra_ that he had propped up beside him after a fruitless effort earlier to calm himself with music.

For several minutes he rushes to clean up the mess and change his clothes. Only later, when the wet towels are in the wash and the _asenoi_ has been wiped off and righted on its tripod, does he examine the burn on his palm. Already the skin looks shiny and taut. A blister, certainly, across the entire heel of his hand.

Not the worst burn he's ever had, but bad enough. He makes a mental note to cover it with a dermaplast.

Before he can, however, his computer chimes in the other room and he walks down the hall to the living area.

A note from the Academy—an alert about the tremor. Minor damage reported, and no injuries. His eyes flick quickly over what proves to be an unnecessary email.

Another Academy email catches his eye, one he has read twice since receiving it yesterday—not something he normally does, not something he needs to do with an eidetic memory.

It is a notice that he may have to serve on an academic council when a disciplinary hearing convenes. One of the instructors in the engineering department has been charged with violating the rules against fraternization. Spock knows few details except that the charge involves a consensual sexual relationship between the professor and a student.

The attachment on the email is what Spock has read twice—the heavily cross-referenced handbook listing the regulations.

They haven't changed since he read them carefully on his own four months ago, the day after Nyota became his TA.

For 8.32 minutes he sits in front of the computer, staring at the screen without seeing anything, as blind as if his inner eyelid were protecting him from things too hard to view.

Since handing the poetry book to Nyota yesterday, Spock has neither eaten nor slept. Nor does he expect to be able to now. Instead, he decides to shower and go to the office, perhaps finishing up his grading and leaving before Nyota gets there.

For all his careful planning, however, Spock has not counted on Professor Artura's intrusion as soon as he unlocks his office. The Andorian is clearly distraught by the tremor in the night—distraught beyond what it merits, actually. But Spock forces himself to listen as the professor complains about the series of earthquakes that have shaken his composure.

When Nyota enters the building, Spock knows—he hears the front door shut in the distance and feels the air pressure shift slightly. Then her boots on the steps—she is climbing the three flights with less bounce than usual—an indication that she is tired?

"Good morning, Professor," Nyota says, and Spock is hopeful that the Andorian will take his cue to go back to his office to work. To Spock's disappointment, however, the professor continues to complain about the earthquake—a waste of energy, certainly, and Spock has to refrain from saying so.

Nyota, on the other hand, sounds…if not exactly sympathetic, at least tolerant.

"This makes the second one in two months, doesn't it?" she says. "I slept right through it. I guess you can get used to anything."

Finally Professor Artura leaves and Spock turns to the student PADDs splayed across his desk. To his relief, Nyota does not mention the party or the book of poetry. He knows that she is quite busy with a project in Admiral Spaulding's xenolinguistics class. Hopefully she has not had time to look closely at his gift.

From his vantage point at his desk, Spock is able to watch Nyota unobserved as she works for the next hour, her back turned to him as she focuses on the computer monitor he has set up for her on a small table. To his dismay his attention drifts frequently from the final exams he is grading to the slope of her shoulder, the curve of her neck.

"I need a break," she says suddenly, turning and standing. To refuse to join her might evoke her suspicion, so he nods and walks with her to the break room. Immediately he regrets it—Professor Artura and his aide are already there, sitting at a table and offering them tea.

For a moment he considers returning to his office instead. However, Nyota moves gracefully to the cabinet, opening a door and lifting out the tea canister he recently refilled with her favorite Kenyan tea. On a whim, he takes the mug she had given him yesterday from the storage drawer and says, "Use this one."

Her reaction is exactly as he had hoped. She gifts him with a smile.

"You like it?"

"How unusual," Professor Artura says before Spock can answer. "Did you make it?"

Laughing, Nyota says, "Oh, no, not me! A local potter made it—I found it over on Kober Street. It matches the Commander's….firepot…."

Her halting cadence, her quick look up at him—he recognizes that she is embarrassed. Is she concerned that Professor Artura will interpret her gift as being inappropriate, too personal?

He squirms, thinking about the poetry book.

"Are you going home for the holidays?" Professor Artura's aide asks Nyota.

"I need to go home some time," she says. "But I have this huge project to finish—and my roommate will be here. The dorm is already so empty—I hate leaving her."

Spock is baffled by his own reaction. He wants her to hurry and go home, to leave for the holidays so he can walk the campus without the fear of meeting her along the paved pathways, on the cafeteria steps, in his office.

On the other hand, he is overcome with a wave of loneliness at her words.

"Spock," Professor Artura says, motioning with his hand, "your tea will get cold if you don't drink it quickly."

"Just hold your hand around your mug if it does," Nyota says. "I mean, you could heat up that mug just by touching it. You're hot enough."

"I assume," Spock says, raising an eyebrow, "you mean that my core temperature is higher than the temperature of the tea."

"I think the cadet is making a pun," Professor Artura says. "Surely you know the double meaning of the word _hot_ in human vernacular. And perhaps she is making a comparison, too—saying that _she_ is a tea mug."

Even Professor Artura's quiet aide reacts, and Spock feels his face flush. If he says nothing, he will seem to assent. Yet knowing how to confront the professor's overly-familiar witticism is a challenge.

His mother would have replied with a witticism of her own. His father could simply stare someone into silence.

Spock decides to sound matter-of-fact—neither acknowledging the professor directly nor ignoring him.

"Or perhaps the cadet simply means what she says, that Vulcan physiology is not the same as human."

Professor Artura shakes his head and rises, and his assistant follows. As soon as they are out of the break room, Nyota places her hand flat on the table between them and says, "I'm sorry he misconstrued what I said. I didn't mean to embarrass you—"

Embarrassment would be illogical. He opens his mouth to tell her so but she speaks first.

"Although, you could have replied that I could cool a mug of tea with my human touch."

To his horror, he proves to be his mother's son, his own comeback slipping from his lips before he is aware.

"But the professor compared _you_ to the tea mug," he says, picking up his mug and cupping it in his palm, "not _me._ We would have to change the metaphor."

He grips the mug, astonished at what he has said.

Jumping up, Nyota knocks the table and splashes tea over the edge of her cup.

"Oh!" she says, grabbing a towel from the counter and wiping up her spill. "I'm just…clumsy today."

This is what he has become, someone so tired, so unfocused, so distracted with longing that he disgusts the person he cares most about.

As she wipes up the table, he hurries to his office and begins packing up his things.

When Nyota follows him he angles his face away from her, and when she tries to help him gather up the student PADDs, he motions for her to stop.

Before he realizes what is happening, Nyota catches sight of his burned hand and grabs his wrist, twisting his palm upward and leaning over to see it better. She is so close that he can smell the scent of the lotion she uses when the weather is dry, can see a spring of her hair coiled at her temple. Feeling his chest constrict, he tries to pull back.

"How did you do this?" she says, moving closer.

The room becomes unbearably hot.

"A burn," Spock says, tugging his hand against her grip.

"Stop! You haven't treated this, have you? It's all blistered, maybe infected. Let me get the med kit from the break room."

At last she releases him as she hurries to the cabinet where the med kit is stored. If he leaves now—

But he is paralyzed, unable to move or speak. When she returns with the med-kit and opens it, he watches, mutely, picking up a dermaplast but handing it over when she asks for it.

"I'll try not to hurt you," she says, and without wanting to he searches for a double meaning in her words.

"Don't," she says when he tries to pull his hand away again.

She sets the dermaplast gingerly across the burn, sliding her fingers around the edges to help it adhere. Her hand slows and then stops, her palm resting on his.

If he were logical—if he were a rational, thinking person—he would step back and remove her hand. If he were able to move.

He is as paralyzed as he was the day of the _k'karee_ bite—feverish and uncomfortably cold, his body betraying him, and his mind, too, sensing Nyota looking for him as the memories of the desert landscape of Vulcan come rushing back. Her face looms in his vision and he shuts his eyes in a vain attempt not to see her.

He is there again, in his parents' garden, face down in the red soil, his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth, aching with a thirst that is worse than any physical pain. The birds overhead, the wavering heat, the plants his mother has carefully cultivated at the border of the garden—he sees them again, and feels his desperation as keenly as he did that day—and because Nyota stands waiting, as silent as a mythical _sirshos'im_ , and as persuasive, he allows her to see what he sees, and lets her feel the homesickness that sometimes threatens to break him apart.

"Your home!" he hears her whisper. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

" _Please—"_ Spock says, letting the word do double duty. _Please let me go. Please come to me._

Slowly, slowly, Nyota unfurls her fingers from his.

"Commander, I'm—"

He is abashed at his breach of decorum. Imposing a telepathic impression on someone this way—without her foreknowledge or consent….

"Please," Spock says again, casting about desperately for something to say that will grant him absolution. "Be safe as you travel home."

Even as he says it, he senses Nyota's confusion and hurt.

Turning toward his desk, he gathers up the other PADDs and notebooks, careful to avert his gaze as Nyota picks up her backpack and leaves.

Her boots on the steps again—and the subtle motion of air as the front door opens and shuts. Sure that she is gone, he breathes deeply, finally able to move.

Almost sprinting to his apartment, he examines the details he had let slip from his mind to hers—not just the images of the desert or the pain of his earlier ordeal—but the very real parallel of that memory to how he feels now.

How paralyzed he is.

How parched he is for her.

The urgency he feels to touch her when they are together, to seek out her company when he is lonely, to share his memories with her and learn her story—

_She knows this about him now._

He has to get away.

Just inside his apartment door is the temperature control. He palms it as high as it will allow and then throws his satchel to the sofa, sitting on the adjoining chair and pulling up the work mail Nyota had flagged on his comm. If his parents are heading to Seattle tomorrow, he might be able to catch a shuttle and arrive about the same time—if he doesn't have to serve on the discipline committee.

His mind races as he decides to read the Academy mail first. The professor accused of sexual misconduct has chosen to resign rather than face a hearing—which frees Spock to leave town immediately. He barely pauses to consider how inappropriate his relief is.

Next he opens a note from his mother, scanning it quickly for their arrival time, but to his surprise he reads that his parents will not be coming to Seattle for the holidays after all. His father's medics have advised against it so soon after his surgery.

At this news, he sits for a minute, nonplussed.

He had counted on being surrounded by his family—of finding a refuge in their company, or at least a distraction. And a private word with Chris—that would have been helpful.

Seattle is still a possibility—his aunt Cecilia would be glad to have him—but he calls up the shuttle schedules for Vulcan instead.

He really should go home.

Nothing tonight, but he can catch a flight early tomorrow morning.

The intercom buzzes, startling him.

Holding the comm in his hand, he sits, immobile, unable to rise. The only people who ever ring his door chime are neighbors—lately more often than not one young blonde woman who has an unusual number of computer complaints that he is called on to repair.

But the intercom is for the building's outside door. He expects no one, knows no one who would visit.

Someone pressing the wrong apartment button? Undoubtedly.

And then he is startled again, this time so badly that his hand shakes, when his door chimes.

"Commander Spock?"

Holding his breath, he sees Nyota's shadow in the dimpled glass inset in the door.

The chime—again.

Opening the door and inviting her in would require him to be able to walk across the room; walking across the room could only happen if he could stand up from the chair.

He sits, frozen, silent.

_I ravish you in my dreams._

She knows this about him now, too.

From where he sits he can see her shadow bob and weave—and then he hears the silky hiss of paper sliding into the mail slot.

He waits until the outside door slams, imagines her walking across campus, her arms pumping back and forth as she often does to ward off the chill, considers how long it takes her to greet her roommate and perhaps join her for dinner.

And only then, when he is certain that she is beyond his reach, does he stand up, wobbly legged, and walk the few steps to the mail slot, unlatching the bolt and slipping his hand inside, fingering the paper and carrying it with him to the sofa to read.

_I am not leaving for several days. Call me if you need me._

_If you need me._

The subordinate clause laid bare, free of any artifice, a hopeful, future tense in the phrase.

_If he needs her._

Crumpling the paper in his uninjured hand, he walks to his bedroom and opens the closet, tugging his duffel from the floor. Enough clothes for a few days—shirts designed to wick away daytime perspiration, a tightly woven jacket for the cool desert nights, his hiking boots.

Seeing the heirloom _ka'athyra_ on the bedside table, he picks it up by the headstock and lets the light play over the surface, looking for any remnants of _asenoi_ oil or damage from the flame. After a moment he places the _ka'athyra_ in his duffel, a sudden memory of finding his scanner there when Chris gave it back to him all those years ago.

Spock still isn't sure why his father sent the _ka'athyra_ to him—intimations of mortality before the surgery, he supposes, or a quiet peace offering. Time to return it to the person who plays it best—if for no other reason than to keep it safe—not here, where the vagaries of moisture and fire and the unpredictable movements of the earth put it at risk.

If he can get back home, to the familiar comfortable heat, away from the wet tumultuous landscape of San Francisco—if he can lie awake in his childhood bed, reading _The Odyssey_ or listening to his father playing music in another room…if he can meet with T'Pring and resolve the uncertainty he feels about her—perhaps then, after quiet evenings of drinking tea with his mother and watching the newsfeeds with his father, perhaps then he will feel safe.

What he thinks he knows about himself will finally be clear. He will be like a blind man whose vision is restored, or like a traveler in the desert, finding water under the sand, quenching his thirst at last.

 

**NOTE:  In my timeline I've created for these characters, the action moves forward next in a story called "Slips of the Tongue."  It works both as a stand alone story and as the first of a short trilogy of Academy fics that show Spock and Uhura struggling to decide whether or not to act on their feelings for each other.  If you enjoy UST and happy endings, hang on for the ride!**


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